the plant and displacement of 156,000 people. inside the evacuation zone all farms is abandon. in 2011, virm was struck by a rare but strong earthquake felt up and down the eastern seaboard. it caused the nuclear power plant near the ep center to go offline. for me this hits close to home. a nuclear power plant, indian point, lies less than 40 miles away from my new york city district on an earthquake fault. there are 20 million people living within a 50-mile radius around the plant. the same radius used by the nrc as basis for evacuation zone recommend theafed fukushima disaster. it also sits near two fault lines and according to the n.r.c. is the most likely nuclear power plant in the experience core damage due to an earthquake. to keep my constituents and all

americans safe, i'm offering this amendment today. because of the catastrophe that can result from disasters, be they natural or manmade at nuclear power plants, prevention of meldowns is key. and to have enough backup power to avoid a meltdown. the n.r.c. must have the flexibility to issue new regulations to ensure the well-being of all americans and prevent nuclear disasters. this bill is designed so new regulations will never be put into place. we cannot let the nuclear regulatory commission not to ever put in new regulations. exempt the nuclear regulatory commission. and that way, the nuclear regulatory commission would have the ability to safeguard public health and safety as it should. we should not risk the lives of

millions and millions of people if a danger becomes obvious or evident, i should say, and the experts in charge of protecting against that, deems new protection necessary. this bill would prevent those protections from going into effect. so my amendment would exempt the nuclear regulatory commission with respect to safety regulations of nuclear power plants. i reserve. the chair: the gentleman reserves the balance of his time. for what purpose does gentleman rise? mr. goodlatte: claim the time in opposition. the amendment carves out the reins act approval procedures, all regulations that pertain to nuclear reactor safety standards. we want to guarantee that regulatory decisions that pertain to nuclear reactor safety are the best decisions that can be made. that is why i oppose the amendment. the amendment shields from the

reins act congressional approval procedures, not only major regulations, but also regulations that would lower them. all major regulations pertaining to safety standards, whether they razor lower standards would fall within the reins act. agencies within nuclear reactor safety know that congress must approve their major regulation before they go into effect. that provides an incentive for the agency to write the best possible regulation, one that congress can approve. it's a solution that everyone should support because it makes congress more accountable and agencies will write better rules. all americans will be safer for it. and i urge my colleagues to oppose the amendment. and i reserve. the chair: the gentleman reserves the balance of his time. the gentleman from new york. mr. nadler: how much time do i have left? the chair: one minute. mr. nadler: i yield myself the balance of my time.

mr. speaker, under current law, congress can disapprove any proposed rule and regulation under the congressional review act. under this bill, no regulation can go into effect until congress affirmatively approves the regulation. if the n.r.c. approves some rule that reduces nuclear safety, congress under current law, could block that rule. my amendment says no safety regulation can go into effect until congress gets around to approving it. he republican party took the trappings and hud bill off the floor because they said we have no time to consider it. and we would have hundreds of thousands of regulations by all the different we have to consider. most would not be considered

because we don't have time. all this amendment says, for regulations regarding nuclear disasters, to prevent them, let congress veto them if necessary, but not kill them by not having the time to get to them. i yield back. the chair: the gentleman from virginia. mr. goodlatte: i yield myself the balance of my time. mr. chairman, the fact of the matter is when it comes to regulatory safety, the gentleman cites the congressional review act. and i'll remind the house as i noted earlier, since 1996, it's nomicused one time for ergo furniture. that is not a very good track record when tens of thousands of regulations have been passed during that time that should be reviewed by this congress and this legislation only asks that

those regulations that cost more than $100 million should be reviewed. but it's true of the most important regulations related to the nuclear power industry where safety is a very important standard, as is efficiency, in making sure the american people have the electric power generation they need. so the congress has great incentive to rich quick agreement on regulations like that. and it's very important we have that jurisdiction. but many regulations are not needed. they cost jobs in our economy. and i know those on the other side of the aisle have been citing academics who claim that that's not the case. but i want to call attention to one more academic who wrote just on january 18 of 2011, he said sometimes those rules have of balance placing

unreasonable burdens on business, burdens that have stifled on innovation and chilling effect on growth and jobs. that academic's name is barack obama and he is currently the president of the united states. i urge my colleagues to oppose the amendment. the chair: the question is on the amendment offered by the gentleman from new york. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair, the noes have it and the amendment is not agreed to. mr. nadler: despite the test that might be needed here, i ask for a roll call. the chair: pursuant to clause 6, rule 18, further proceedings on the amendment offered by the gentleman from new york will be postponed. it is now in order to consider amendment number 7 printed in part b of house report 113-187. the hat purpose does gentleman from georgia seek recognition? mr. johnson: i rise in support of my amendment to h.r. --.

the clerk: amendment number 7 printed in house report 113-187, offered by mr. johnson of georgia. the chair: pursuant to house resolution 322, the gentleman from georgia, mr. johnson, and a member opposed each will control five minutes. the chair recognizes the gentleman from georgia. mr. johnson: i rise in support f my amendment which is very simple. it would exclude from this bill any rule that would result in net job growth. i ask that my colleagues support this commonsense amendment to promote job growth and help to strengthen the middle class. after all, the stated purpose of the ragse act is to grow the economy and create jobs, isn't that correct? although this bill purports to grow the economy and create jobs, nothing could be further from the truth. this bill's focus on gumming up the regulatory process will not

create a single job but will result in the loss of much needed rules to protect the health, safety and well-being of men, women and children of america. i have profound concerns about the reins act. what will it be on air and water quality. this bill would undermine the ability of agencies to protect the public interest. it is continuation of the majority anti--middle class, big business regulatory approach to governing. they rely on debunk bipartisan studies. they presuppose that regulations have harmful effects on job growth. far from it. there is bipartisan evidence in support of the opposite conclusion. regulations ensure that the air and water we consume. the air that we breathe. the places where we work and where our kids go to school are

safe. regulations ensure fairness in the workplace and in the marketplace. regulations are necessary to s, tect tv nots from the have whereas the reins act protects the have nots from the haves. this is an out of control freight train to drive its reckless regulatory agenda through congress. this threatens us to send us back in time to the early 1900's, where there was no workplace protections and no limits on wall street. if republican leadership truly believed in creating jobs, we would have come together with the grand bargain a long time ago. we could have agreed to spending

cuts and tax reforms. we could have prevented the austerity of sequestration which threatens our fragile economic recovery. this tea party congress could not even muster the will to vote to fund the transportation bill yesterday. this is yet another example of a do-nothing congress under the an anti-middle class republican leadership. americans have the right to expect that their legislators will enact laws that create jobs, like doing something about sequestration. my colleague, mr. hal rogers hit the nail on the head yesterday when he said and i quote, sequestration and it's unrelate particular and ill-conceived discretionary cuts must be brought to an end, unquote. american workers continue to face hurdles in providing for their families and i'm gravely

concerned about the effects of sequestration on my home state of georgia. last month, furloughs began for ins air force base and others across georgia. this just won't affect the hard-working people at bases, but have an effect on the local economies. the furloughs which began last week will take $50 million out of the economy around the robbins air force base alone. multiply that with the economic catastrophe across military bases across georgia and the country. you begin to understand the effects of sequestration on small businesses and on the economy. but instead of working together to come to a bipartisan solution to the sequestration fiasco,

this congress is continuing an agenda to make life worse for american families. i urge all of my colleagues to support this commonsense amendment to promote job creation. and i will reserve. the chair: the gentleman's time has expired. for what purpose does the gentleman from virginia rise? mr. goodlatte: i rise to claim time in opposition. the chair: the gentleman is recognized for five minutes. mr. goodlatte: the amendment carves out of the reins act congressional approval procedures, that the office determines that will lead to net job determination. it gives them to manipulate the analysis of a major regulations job impact. o.m.b. may shave the analysis to skirt the approval requirement. in addition, regulations alleged to create net new jobs often do so by destroying real existing bs and creating new hope-for

jobs. for example, some environmental protection agency, clean air act rules will shut down existing power plants. e.p.a. and o.m.b. may justify that with claims with more new green jobs will be created. that is another way in which government picks the jobs' winners and jobs' losers. no guarantee that the green jobs will actually exist and i would cite solyndra and cost the taxpayers half a billion. the reins act is not intended to force any particular outcome and does not choose between clean or dirty air or new jobs and old jobs. the reins act chooses between two ways of making laws, the way the framers intended with major economic impacts rests with congress and rejects the way washington has operated for far

too long and there is no accountability because decisions are made by unelected agency officials. undermine nt would that fundamental choice. regulatory agencies routinely estimate the benefits and costs under the assumption that any individuals that become unemployed are instantly re-employed in nearly identical jobs. the e.p.a.'s impact analysis is frequently flawed because it fails to account for the effects of regulation across interconnected industries and markets. using the proper full economy nera, economic consulting found that the e.p.a.'s utility rule would have a negative impact equivalent to 180,000 to 215,000 lost jobs in 20 jobs, which

therefore that wouldn't come to the congress, even though private consultants say it would lose over 215,000 jobs. e.p.a. says it would create 8,000 jobs. the e.p.a.'s cross-state pollution rule would have an impact to the annual loss of 34,300 jobs from 2013 through 2037 versus the e.p.a.'s claimed 700 jobs gained annually. and finally, the e.p.a.'s industrial boiler maximum achievable technology would have a negative impact equivalent to 27,585 jobs per year on average from 2013 through 2037 compared to the e.p.a.'s claim of 2,200 per year gained. all of this goes all this shows it would be a shell game allowing the executive branch to claim joben creases when there are massive

job losses and therefore avoid the vuteny of the people ose people's house and the entire united states congress when these massive regulations should come before us for approval and review before they are imposed on americans. the chair: the gentleman yields back. the sque on the amendment offered by the gentleman from georgia. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair the noes have it. the amendment is not agreed to. mr. johnson: i ask for a recorded vote. the chair: pursuant to clause 6 of rule 18, further proceedings on the amendment offered by the gentleman from georgia will be postponed. it is now in order to consider amendment number 8 printed in house report -- in part b of house report 113-187. for what purpose does the gentlewoman from texas seek recognition? ms. jackson lee: i ask have an amendment at the desk. the chair: the clerk will designate the amendment.

the clerk: amendment number eight printed in part b of house report 113-187, offered by ms. jackson lee of texas. the chair: purr sinet to the rule, the gentlewoman from texas, ms. jackson lee, and a member opposed will each control five minutes. the gentlewoman is recognized. the manager in opposition will have the right to close. the gentlelady is recognized for five minutes. s. jackson lee: let me thank my colleagues whenever they engage in debate, i know they have a serious commitment to the process of this house and

this nation. i rise today to offer an amendment and i hope that it addresses the chairman's offer of legislative collegiality. if this is such an important effort then i believe that the amendments that have been offered by my colleagues and the one i introduced as we speak is one that makes this bill reasonable. my amendment would except from the bill's congressional approval requirement any rull promulgated by the department of homeland security. organized and established in the backdrop of the heinous and tragic terrorist act of 9/11. n fact, i can't imagine this legislation being effective in the midst of tragedy and devastation. i don't think my friend understands that there's nothing in the reins act that prevents a filibuster, a

filibuster means that we will never get a resolution voted on by the two houses. never. because it does not negate a filibuster. so in the midst of a crisis, where people are in need of relief by the department of homeland security, such as the department of homeland security having to act quickly to establish new or emergency regulations in the protection of critical infrastructure, here comes the dastardly reins act. i think we'd be better off right now to be debating h.r. 00, to eliminate the -- 900, to eliminate the sequestration to bring jobs back to america. but i -- but i hope that this amendment will be considered because i can't imagine the very department that was established to put its foot in the gap now is going to be hinnered by the reins act. with that, i reserve my time. the chair: the gentlelady reserves. for what purpose does the gentleman from virginia rise? >> i rise to claim time in

opposition. the chair: the gentleman is recognized. mr. goodlatte: i thank the chairman and i would say to the gentlewoman from texas that the bill prohibits a filibuster in the senate from being used to block consideration of regulations that come before the congress. so we are making every effort to have that bipartisan collegiality that she suggest but i don't think this amendment accomplishes that. the amendment seeks to shield the department of homeland security from congress' authority to approve regulations under the reins act, that shield should be denied. for example, take the department's rule to extend compliance deadlines for states to issue secure drivers licenses under the real i.d. act more than a decade after 9/11 hijackers used fraud lebt licenses to board planes to murder 3,000 innocent americans western continue to keep this extension in place. s the kind of decision making that takes part at the department of homeland

security. congress should use every power take back its power in these digs and i reserve the balance of my time. the chair: the gentlelady has three minutes remaining. ms. jackson lee: to the contrary, to my good friend from virginia, the bill does not entirely prohibit a filibuster. in fact, a filibuster can be used on the procedural motion to bring the bill up. and in the senate, they could never bring this up. and so let me remind my friends, galveston, 6,000 people dead and climbing, 1,900 -- 1900, hurricane katrina, 2005, 19 0, a heat waive in chicago, in the southern and central states killing 1,700. hurricane katrina killing 1,836. chicago heat wave of 1995. disasters that need the relief

that the american people deserve. this tells us what we will be facing while a filibuster is going on in the senate. this is a map only of this year, already disasters in washington state, with mud slides, oklahoma with tornadoes, arizona with wild fires, wyoming with mud slides and then they want to block the homeland security from developing regulations for infrastructure, they want it to stop what is going on at sandy, hurricane sandy and the repair needed and infrastructure called the reins act which as i said goes arn and around and around. i hope my colleagues will support this amendment. i reserve my time. the chair: the gentlelady reserves. the gentleman from virginia. mr. goodlatte: i yield myself such time as i may consume. the chair: the gentleman is recognized. mr. goodlatte: i want to point

out to the house that the assertion that this does not prevent a filibuster in the senate is incorrect. if members would examine pages 12 through 14 of the bill, they will see multiple ways in which procedural motions and substantive motions in the senate are bard from undertaking a filibuster and they must proceed through those points of order and other objections that might be raised to a final vote on this regulation urn the reins act and this is a good thing because it will allow for expeditious consideration by the congress of regulations, whether they're needed or not needed, they ought to be considered by the congress, especially if they cost more than $100 million to the american economy. i reserve the balance of my time. the chair: the gentleman reserves. the gentlelady from texas. ms. jackson lee: i'm glad the gentleman pointed out pages 12 to 14. he indicated a number of procedural hula hoops that we

have to jimp through, each of those procedural hula hoops will be subject to a filibuster but this is what the american people go through. here's a tornado or earthquake. here's hurricane sandy, there are a variety of issues that it results in. here's a wildfire. i'd like to give 30 seconds to the gentleman from tennessee if he would on this amendment. if he would just comment. the chair: the gentleman is recognized for 30 seconds. mr. cohen: thank you. i appreciate your bringing this amendment. there's a lot of opportunities for the people of west tennessee to benefit from it. we are an area that has been known to have tornadoes, we have potential of an earthquake , fema comes under this and to stop fema from having proper regulations to protect the public would be a serious mistake. it's important that we safeguard our citizens, particularly when they're ictims of natural tragedies.

ms. jackson lee: i thank the gentleman and reclaiming my time, i would like to ask my colleagues to be sensible, realize you can't control the other body. this amendment is a sensible amendment that responds to the outcry of wildfires, tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, the american people are looking for the department of homeland security to be able to focus on the infrastructure repair, the regulatory scheme and structure to respond to an emergency, bill does not deal with emergencies, it deals with an elongated process that unfortunately will drown, if you will, the people with a regulatory structure that does not provide them with the relief that first responders need or that people need. i ask my colleagues to be sensible and vote for the jackson lee amendment. the chair: the gentlelady's time as expired. the gentleman from virginia. mr. goodlatte: i yield myself the balance of my time and would just say in opposition to this amendment, again, members only need to look to the bill the senate will not tolerate

filibusters at any point in the process from start to tinnish -- finish. let me also point out that the american people care very much about how dasters are handled and so do the elected representatives of the american people. but we're talking about regulations written by the agency that cost more than $100 million. those regulations, fehr they're -- if they're written wrong and many would say the department of homeland security has gotten it wrong many time with regulations from the t.s.a., for example. those regulations should come back to this congress for review. the american people have the first and foremost place to look for leadership on these issues in the congress of the united states. the people's house and the united states senate. and not to government regulatory agencies. yes they need to write regulations but they shouldn't have the final say, particularly on the most expensive regulations affecting our economy. money that's diverted, money

that's diverted to pay for unnecessary regulations is money that can't be spent to dress -- to address other problems in this clint or pay down our national debt. that's what's prnt and that's why this amendment should be defeated. we need to have common sense brought to our regulatory process, the reins act does it, it reins in unnecessary burdensome regulations and helps protect american jobs and ought to be protected and that includes protected from unnecessary or burdensome regulations in the department of homeland security and i urge my colleagues to oppose the amendment and yield back the balance of my time. the chair: the gentleman yields back. the question is on the amendment offered by the gentlewoman from texas. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair the noes have it. the amendment is not agreed to. ms. jackson lee: i ask for a recorded vote. the chair: a recorded vote has been requested. purr sune to rule 6 of rule 18, further proceedings on the amendment offered by the gentlewoman from texas will be postponed. it is now in order to consider

amendment number 9 printed in part bmbing of house report 113-187. for what purpose does the gentleman from west virginia seek recognition? mr. mckinley: i have an amendment at the desk. the chair: the clerk will designate the amendment. the clerk: amendment number 9 printed in part b of house report 113-187, offered by mr. mckinley of west virginia. the chair: pursuant to house resolution 322, the gentleman from west virginia, mr. mckinley and a member opposed each will control five minutes. the gentleman is recognized. mr. mckinley: thank you, mr. chairman. this bill currentry requires that all regulations that cost $100 million or more must first be approved by congress. therefore, mr. chairman, i rise today to offer an amendment to reduce that threshold from $100 million to $50 million. this would enshire greater trands paraphernaliacy and more

accountability in the process. let's put this in perspective, mr. chairman. , all the st two years regulations individually that have exceeded $100 million, according to the regulators, only 2% have been reviewed. 2%. that means 98% of all the regulations that we have faced in america have not had an involvement of congress. who would be satisfied with only 2% of our food that we eat that had been inspected? who would want the fact that our homes or planes that we fly in, only 2% of our planes are inspected? our homes, businesses, only 2%

are inspected? the administration has been overly aggressive with the bureaucrats and are playing with people's lives. last weekend, there was a serbian picnic in northern west virginia and i was approached by two adult males, very concerned. welled rman, their eyes up with fear and concern because of all these regulations that are being imposed on them. they feel they are threatened and whether they are going to have a job because of all these regulations and no one is overseeing them. these men love to work. they want to work. but they feel these new regulations threaten the american dream and are taking away that possibility for them to raise their families. each of us knows men like this.

they live in our neighborhoods. when we go home, we see these people. they want to work, but they afraid of someone moving a goal post that is not checked by congress. every year, these regulations cost hundreds of billions of dollars annually and are implemented without congressional oversight on 98% of them. according to the small business administration, the cumulative burden of regulations exceeds more than $1 trillion annually out of our economy. let me say this again. nearly 98% of all new regulations have no economic analysis or oversight by the american public. federal regulators last year issued 2,500 new regulations, just in one year alone. doesn't this administration

understand that excessive, unchecked regulations harm working families, just because the administration can issue a regulation, it doesn't mean it should. by reducing the threshold, we provide congress the opportunity rein in n these -- these out of control agencies. mr. chairman, i would like to yield some time to my good friend from virginia. the chair: how much time does the gentleman yield? mr. mckinley: i yield to the gentleman one minute. mr. goodlatte: i support the amendment. i share my colleague's desire to bring scrutiny. and i know that recent major regulations have hit west virginia and the gentleman's constituents particularly hard. the regulations that affect

energy sources and power production are among the most troubling. the $100 million threshold is consistent with priorities. however regulations with a $50 million impact in today's economy will hit america's job creators and families too hard. this is true of small businesses and the families that depend on them on main streets throughout the nation. the amendment would make sure that congress is accountable for regulatory decisions of this magnitude that impose harm on an economy that can ill afford and therefore i support the gentleman's amendment and i urge my colleagues to join me in doing so. the chair: the gentleman's time has expired. for what purpose does the gentleman from tennessee rise? mr. cohen: i rise in opposition to this amendment. the amendment is twice as bad as the bill because it decreases by $50 million the threshold, which

means and more and more regulations would have to go through the process and really stifle regulations and rules and that's what this is about. the speaker said the job of this congress is not to pass legislation but to repeal legislation. well, that's what these bills are about. they're not about to improve the lives of americans by more safety and regulation but defeat proposals that come from the e.p.a. to protect the air and water and our earth. and in other areas, safety, whether it's automobiles or airplanes or trains or trucks or whatever. the fact is this would make it almost impossible to pass a rule or regulation and allow one house the ability to kill a regulation. a house that doesn't have the expertise in it that has been said by the members, don't know

how big to build a dam, that's why we have government people who study and do research and proposal you will debate rules and regulations to protect us and it's done in a nonpolitical environment. you bring it in this environment, you will have lobbyists coming up. this is a yo-yo bill. you are on your own. and that's what they're saying basically. we don't want protections for consumers and protections for citizens. we want to have some no rules and regulations, you're out there on your own. i want to yield some time to the lady from houston, texas and yield to her. the chair: the gentlelady from texas is recognized. ms. jackson lee: i thank the georgia from tennessee and i beg to differ with my good friend.

this is even more extreme. and i read the sections that my good chairman referred me to how expeditious this would be in the united states senate. and it's unworkable. how anyone thinks that the senate is going to pass this bill, they have never passed it, because what it says is, you are going to kick out the resolution out of committee. you are going to discharge it. and then you are going to move it beyond all of their rules. you are literally abolishing the senate's rules that they have not redone themselves. they never got agreement on ending a filibuster. and so, i have no idea how issues of security and safety as it relates to homeland security, but the issues dealing with fuel and greenhouse gases that have decidely impacted the

american people relates to emission. and now we are going from $100 million to $50 million which in a country of this size which means we are going to double the number of resolutions pound on this body that has really been slow in passing any legislation and then going to move to the senate and tell the senate committees, you don't act in 15 days we are discharging this and we expect the senate to pass this bill, which is the only way it's going to get to the president's desk. over and over again we talk about what president obama's administration has done. if this is about president obama, that's one thing. if this is about creating jobs, the president has offered the american jobs act. we have introduced a bill that has been calculated to have helped create jobs and stop the bleeding of the economy. that translates in the jobs if

we get rid of the sequester, which is there is a bill, h.r. 900, where is the debate on the house floor? i would say we are going from the extreme to the very extreme. and you are going to see a pounding of regulation that moms and dads and children, families, municipalities places that need clean air, clean water, that need better emissions to the extent that it helps with clean air, that needs safety, that needs security, now we are going to pile up with those that may cost $50 million. how absurd is that in term of the legislative schedule of this place and the legislative schedule of the united states senate. i'm not saying anyone is going to sherk off work, we welcome that. every time an amendment comes up now $50 million, then you are

going to say that this must kick in. i ask my colleagues to reject this amendment, because it will not work. the chair: the gentlelady's time has expired. the question is on the amendment offered by the gentleman from west virginia. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it and the amendment s agreed to. it is now in order to consider amendment number 10 printed in part b of house report 113-187.

it is now in order to consider amendment number 11 printed in part b in house report 113-187. mr. webster: i have an amendment at the desk. the clerk: amendment number 11 rinted in house report part b, 113-187 offered by mr. webster of florida. the chair: the gentleman from florida, mr. webster and a member opposed each will control five minutes. the chair recognizes the gentleman from florida. mr. webster: this closes the

regulatory loophole that allows federal agencies to make major policy changes without congressional review. the reins act covers agencies rules developed through the formal notice and comment rule-making process, but that's not enough. but removing two exceptions from the definition of rule, we ensure agency actions that serve a regulatory purpose are subject to the $100 million threshold. the current administration sir congressional oversight and public infut by issuing policies known as guidance documents to achieve its intrusive regulatory agenda. this tactic shields costly policy changes from congressional oversight laws put in place to protect citizens. the e.p.a. used a guidance document to remove the word navigable from the definition of

waters from the united states. this would expand its jurisdiction to potentially state waters and roadside ditches that hold water after rainfall. the e.p.a. estimates that this guidance document could cost americans $171 million annually. last month, we all know the administration noticed of guidance to delay the health care laws employer mandate. this guidance document will cost $12 billion. both of these guidance documents make substantive changes to policy without congressional review. and under the reins act, as drafted, these costly guidance documents would escape the disapproval process even though they breached the $100 million threshold established by reins. good policyt ve to be

hidden within the cloak of power grabbing. my amendment shines the light into the regulatory infrastructure that is abused by those with an agenda that must be hidden by view. it allows elected representatives to review policy changes issued through internal guidance that exceed the $100 million threshold. hard-working taxpayers are offered a choice through their elected representatives that impact their jobs and pocketbook. this amendment secures this fundamental measure of government accountability and respect for taxpayers by requiring a vote of congress in all substantive agency rules. the ragse act improves the regulatory process and holds government accountable to the american people to the laws imposed on them. i urge my colleagues to support the web steer amendment by

closing this loophole which erodes the rule of law. i reserve. the chair: the gentleman reserves the balance of his time. the gentleman from cope. mr. cohen: i rise in opposition. the chair: the gentleman is recognized for five minutes. mr. cohen: this just takes it to another level. it's just not the rules but then the rules of the rules. about, what this bill is really what it's about is a messaging opportunity. and one side -- we are supposed to be legislating and the reality, we don't legislate but message and one side says we are for business and against regulations and rules and create enterprise by destroying rules and regulations. y side says we are for healthy protections, clean air and clean water and the government process

works because it saves people, saves their lives and we go back and forth. it's not going to get through senate, it's a messaging opportunity for taos fill up c-span. it's unfortunate, because we should be legislating about jobs and the sequester and we ought to be talking about benefits that the government does provide but right now, the sequestration is taken away, important jobs in the defense department, moneys from the national institutes of health which would protect people's lives in the long run through treatments and cures we need in the next generation would benefit greater than us, and yet we're here talking about something that's not going to happen. it's unfortunate because we should be legislating and this bill just gets us into the weeds, gets down into the

regulations. like we're going to stangle the quote-unquote bureaucrats. but the bureaucrats are the expert whs come up with the safe to -- safety provisions that say your children's toys are going to be safe and your car will have brakes and work in the proper manner, the airplane is not going to fall out of the sky when it's not near the airport. those are important things to the american people. if you don't have rules and regulations by experts that can be implemented, we're going to have a lot of accidents. that's why this is a very bad bill and a bad amendment and a bad use of the public's time. i reserve the remainder of my time. the chair: the gentleman reserves the balance of his time. he gentleman from florida. >> i yield one minute to the gentleman, mr. goodlatte. mr. goodlatte: i share my colleague's a desire to restrict abuse of agency

directives and action that was too often eescaped adequate scrutiny. it brings within the reins act rules of agency procedure this -- procedure that could be abused and would otherwise escape a congressional check and balance. it's a first step in reining in excess and i look forward to working with the gentleman to see if we can find additional ways to rein in a abusive practices and guidelines. the chair: the gentleman from florida reserves. the gentleman from tennessee. mr. cohen: i'm going to yield back whatever time we have so i can get to the -- so we can get to the next program on c-span quicker. the chair: the gentleman from florida. mr. webster: we remember what happened on july 3 when there was an announcement made that we were going to reverse our decision on a law passed by this congress, i would not have voted for it when i was here, in one stroke on a -- of a pen

on a guidance document, they were able to thwart the law we passed this body is for legislate, yes it is, but when it does we expect the executive branch to enforce that law which it didn't and it didn't because it was able to use that guidance document to change the law. it's not right. rote for this amendment. the chair: the chairman yields back. the -- the gentleman yields back of. -- the gentleman yields back. the question is on the amendment offered by the gentleman from florida. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair the ayes have it. the amendment is agreed to. it is now in order to consider amendment number 12 printed in part b of house report 113-187. for what purpose does the gentlewoman from wisconsin rise in ms. moore: i have an amendment at the desk. the chair: the clerk will designate the amendment. the clerk: amendment number 12 printed in part b of house report 1 b of 113-187. offered by ms. moore of

wisconsin. the chair: the gentlewoman from wisconsin, ms. moore and a member opposed will each control five minutes. the chair recognizes the gentlewoman from wisconsin. ms. moore: thank you so much, mr. chairman. i rise to offer an amendment to h.r. 367, the reins act, and i'd like to yield myself three minutes of my time. the chair: the gentlelady is recognize for three minutes. ms. moore: thank you, mr. chairman. today's reins act would require a joint approval of congress every time the executive branch promulgates a major rule. my amendment would simply exempt our nation's veterans from the burdensome layers and hurdles that h.r. 367 will add to the administration's rule making process. i oppose the underlying bill because it will severely restrict agency or department action when many vulnerable veterans need help. it is simply unacceptable that every single time our nation's

veterans are being held hostage by the gridlock we're experiencing in congress and this is yet another moment, this amendment offers an opportunity to exempt them from that. mr. chairman, just a few little facts. today's veterans need help more than ever and they really deserve it. unfortunately, over 3,000 active duty troops have taken their lives since 2001. we have an estimated 22 veteran suicides per day. we've had over two million active duty soldiers deployed to iraq and afghanistan, many who are struggling to transition and trying to find employment. and while the v.a. has made some progress in recent months, mr. chairman, the backlog of over half a million claims, those older than 125 days, is simply unacceptable.

some veterans have had to wait up to two years for an administrative decision on a claim. two years. and we're adding more administrative requirements for them. and we're gravely concerned, all of us are, on a bipartisan basis about the growing backlog of appeals pending with the v.a. as resources are shifted. the amount of claims waiting to be heard by the board of veterans affairs is currently over 45,000 estimated to increase to approximately 102,000 by 2017. the average length of an appeal completed in fiscal year 2012 was 903 days, mr. chairman. adding hurdles now will do nothing but curtail options available to the administration as it works toward solving these serious problems. i peel to the -- i appeal to the common sense and compassion for veten -- veterans of my colleagues. my amendment is simple.

veterans deserve to be left out of this political fight. i reserve the balance of my time. the chair: the gentlelady reserves the balance of her time. for what purpose does the gentleman from virginia seek recognition? mr. goodlatte: i rise to claim time in opposition to this amendment. the chair: the gentleman is recognized. mr. goodlatte: the statistic about delays and poor performance at the department of veterans affairs with are regard to veterans claims are reasons to oppose the gentlewoman's amendment. the amendment carves out of the reins act congressional approval procedures all regulations that affect veterans and veterans affairs. reins act supporters honor america's veterans. we want to guarantee that the regulatory decisions that afingt them are the best decisions. that's why major registrationlation -- regulations that affect veterans and veterans affairs like all other major regulations should fall within the reins act. agencies with authority over veterans issues will know that

congress must approve their major regulations before they go into effect. that provides a powerful incentive for the agencies to write the best possible regulations, ones that congress can easily approve, and congress will have every sinentive -- incentive to approve good reaglations and every incentive to disapprove regulation that was led to the kind of delays and uncertainty that veterans face today. that's a solution that everyone should be able to to -- should be able to support. congress will be more accountable, agencies will write better rules and veterans an all americans will reap the benefits. i urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment and reserve the plans of my time. the chair: the gentlelady from wisconsin. ms. moore: thank you so much, mr. chairman, and to my colleague, i'm sure my colleague agrees with me that we should not add hurdles but let me tell you something. if this bill had been in place, bills since

september on behalf of veterans , including the following kinds f initiatives. the 9/11 g.i. bill, which we all agreed upon. to co-payments for med case. resource -- for medication, resources for radiation poisoning. and had we had this bill in place, each and every one of these initiatives would have jint again -- a joint resolution from congress each time the administration, the v.a., promulgated these rules. and if those sofingse congress were were anything like the majority's calendar for this year, we would have had not a ot of time to have completed work. this year, we've only passed 15 bills into law. a record low. compared to last year.

and as a speaker just recently said, i suppose it would apply here, we should not be judged on how many laws we create, we should be judged on how many laws we ere-peel. we wouldn't have been able to do things like the g.i. bill or reduce co-payments for medication had we had this bill in place. the other thing is, you would think that my colleagues would have some pride in this institution. all this bill will do will put much more power within the hands of the executives. we can't appoint bureaucrats to conference committees on the budget. -- n't get them the chair: the gentlelady's time has expired. the gentleman from virginia is recognized. mr. goodlatte: i yield myself the balance of my time. the chair: the gentleman is recognized.

mr. goodlatte: i say to my colleague, the gentlewoman from wisconsin, the -- this house is proud of the fact that we worked in a bipartisan fashion to pass those bills. i have no doubt that if after we passed the bills the department of veterans afairs didn't do the work properly and didn't get it done right, this congress would work in a bipartisan fashion to say no you didn't get it right, get it right. that's what this is about all about. that's why the reins act is so important, not just for every other american but also for veterans. this is something that will improve the regulatory process. before my time expires, i want to -- i don't have two seconds because i think i've got to get this into the record. and that is another study that talks about the creation of jobs which are important to our veterans who returned and are looking for employment in this country. this is a study by the phoenix center and it's entitled regulatory expenditures,

economic greth and jobs, an empirical study, performed by three ph.d.'s and a lawyer. what could be better than that? i want to read from part of the abstract, it says, even a small 5% reduction in the regulatory budget about $2. billion, is estimated to result in about $75 billion in expanded private sector g.d.p. each year with an increase in employment by 1.2 million jobs annually. on average, elimit -- eliminating the job of a single regulator grows the american economy by $6. million and nearly 100 private sector jobs annually. conversely, each million dollar increase in the regulatory budget costs the economy 420 private sector jobs, a study that shows conclusively that we're right when we say that the reins act will help to create jobs in this country and the current regulatory morass we're facing in this country is costing american jobs. i urge my colleagues to oppose

the amendment and to support the underlying bill and i yield back the balance of my time. the chair: the gentleman yields back. ms. moore: i ask unanimous consent -- the chair: all time has expired. ms. moore: i ask unanimous consent to put something in the record. the chair: covered under general leave. the question is on the amendment offered by the gentlewoman from wisconsin. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair the noes have it. ms. moore: i seek a roll call. the chair: the gentlelady requests a rl call vote. pursuant to clause 6 of rule 18, further proceedings on the amendment offered by the gentlewoman from wisconsin will e postponed. for what purpose does the gentleman from virginia wise reis? mr. goodlatte: i move that the committee do now rise. the chair: the question is on the motion that the committee rise. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. the ayes have it and

accordingly the committee rises. the speaker pro tempore: the chair of the committee of the whole house on the state of the union reports that the committee has had under consideration h.r. 367 and has come to no esolution thereon. the chair will entertain requests for one-minute speeches. for what purpose does the gentleman from pennsylvania seek recognition? mr. thompson: request unanimous consent to address the house for one minute, revise and extend. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for one minute.. thompson: mr. speaker,

yesterday i addressed the impact of jobs on shale gas productions that documented in a recent hearing in pennsylvania with a bipartisan natural gas caucus hich i co-chair. the direct benefits to pennsylvania. from 2008 to 2010, pennsylvania established three leases for natural gas production on state forest lands. these leases have generated signing bonuses totaling $413 million and earned the state another $100 million in royalties. since 2007, a total of $1.7 billion in corporate taxes have also been paid. or in 2012 and 2013, the natural gas industry contributed $406 million in impact fees that are benefiting counties and communities across pennsylvania. by 2035, shale gas will contribute $42.4 billion annually to pennsylvania's economy, up from the $7.1

billion in 2010. mr. speaker, the economic impact from natural gas development in pennsylvania is exceeding all expectations. governor corbett and the pennsylvania state legislature are to be congratulated for their leadership in shale gas production. thank you, mr. speaker, and i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. the chair lays before the house he following personal request. the clerk: leaves of absence requested for mr. lewis of georgia for today and mr. young of florida for today. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the requests are accepted. under the speaker's announced the of january 3, 2013, gentleman from arkansas, mr. griffin, is recognized until 10:00 p.m. as the designee of the majority leader. mr.

speaker. i want to take a little time tonight with my colleague, mr. young, representative young from indiana, to talk a little bit about health care in america. talk a little bit about the affordable care act that is currently being implemented and talk about the need for real health care reform in this country. and i want to start out by just emphasizing that i firmly believe we need health care reform. i believe that the health care reform we got in the form of the affordable care act or obamacare is not the health care reform that we need. d i would say that we have lots of proposals here in the house. i think last congress we had over 200 bills introduced that

related to the health care system reforming our -- system, reforming our health care system. and this congress we have dozens of health care reform-related bills as well. so the idea that it's either the affordable care act as we're seeing it unfold or nothing at all, it's a false choice. that's not the choice that we have. there are lots of ideas, lots of much better ideas, i must add. and while i am personally for repeal, i certainly want the affordable care act repealed, i want to replace it with quality, patient-centered health care form, i am not against providing relief to americans who are feeling the burden of the affordable care act or

obamacare right now. in fact, we had a hearing on the implementation of the obamacare law in the ways and means committee today. a committee of which i'm a member. my colleague, representative young's a member. and we heard a lot of people say, hey, this is the law of the land, don't mess with it. this is the law of the land, let it go. this is the law of the land, any attempt to criticize it, to discuss it's -- its shortcummings is a waste of time. i reject -- shortcomings is a waste of time. i reject that outright. i think the president through his actions has rejected that. what am i talking about? well, it's interesting because we've passed seven bills in this ouse, seven bills, that relate

to obamacare, changing obamacare, repealing a part of obamacare. seven that not only passed this house, we sent them to the other side of the capitol, they passed the senate and you know what? the president signed them into law. that may come as a surprise to some folks. but it's the truth. we've passed seven bills to change, to modify, to repeal parts of, to make better obamacare and the president has agreed with us on all seven. he signed them into law. mr. young: are these some of the very same bills, my good colleague, that the president in recent speeches has characterized as partisan, ? sguided, meaningless i do believe you may be

referring to some of those bills. mr. griffin: those are the same bills. i would like to go through, if i can, the seven bills and talk a little bit about what they do and how they were an improvement and i think they are evidence that, yes, we'd like to replace this bill with something much better, this law, but in the short-term we will do whatever it takes to provide relief to american workers, relief to american families, relief to small businesses that are under the burden of obamacare. so let me mention a few of these. h.r. 4, h.r. 4, it repealed the small business paperwork 1099 mandate. and i remember when i first got to congress, i heard from a bunch of folks about the 1099 filing obligation under the president's health care law.

we repealed that. you know what the president did? he agreed. bad part of the law. .ext, h.r. 1473 e cut $2.2 billion from what was characterize -- characterized as a stealth public plan, the consumer-operated and oriented plan, and froze the i.r.s. budget. the president signed that into law. xt, h.r. 674 saved taxpayers $13 billion by adjusting the eligibility for obamacare programs. the president signed that into law. reductions e more to the consumer-oriented --

operated and oriented plan that i mentioned earlier. also to the ipab, the independent payment advisory board, an independent board that's going to cut medicare, because it hasn't been reformed when it runs out of money. so that was signed into law. today's hearing, in the ways and means committee, folks on the other side of the aisle were saying, ah, this talk, this criticism about the president's law, obamacare, waste of time, meaningless, all . litics hogwash. the president signed a bunch of it into law. mr. young: it is hogwash and it's particularly hogwash because among those various reforms that you itemized there, let's reflect on how much persuasion, how much public argument was required to even bring the president of the

united states to go along with repealing this egregious, sue fuffer louis 1099 repeal. we had to make the public argument, we had to win the argument. because there was great reluctance, if recollection serves, and i think it does, to make any changes whatsoever to what most americans now know as obamacare. the thought was, the thinking still seems to be, among a number of our colleagues that if they touch the act, then that's going to lead to further reform, perhaps disillusion or repeal of the act together and replacement with something that is more patient-centered, with something frankly more bipartisan. and so to our colleagues that often level criticisms at those of us who are identifying ways to alleviate the pain on the american people with respect to this law, the to called

affordable care act, i think it bears reminding the importance of continuing the argument, forcefully making the argument about all the pain that it's causing. mr. griffin: precisely. and a lot of people ask, why all the focus, why all the energy, why all the speeches? because it's important, number one. and number two, it takes the , they, the focus, the time prioritization, the resources to convince people, the president included, that this is not the way to go. ow, i think if you were to throw these seven different bills out there a few years ago when obamacare passed and said,

hey, what are the chances of the president signing this, people would have said, no way. no way it's going to happen. so, it's a process. it's a process of making the argument with facts, not through personal attack, with facts, make the vigorous argument. that's what this body and democracy is about, make the argument, win the argument and then repeal or change. and i would mention there are slashed e, h.r. 3630 billions of dollars from some discretionary funds, some slush funds where they had some flexibility to use and the president agreed with that. he signed that into law. drafting adjusted a

$670 million. and h.r. 8, repealed what was called the class program. community living assistant services and supports program. the former democratic chairman of the senate budget committee called the class program, quote, a ponzi scheme of the first order, the kind of thing bernie madoff would be proud of, end quote. we saved billions of dollars with the repeal of -- through h.r. 8. so, to reiterate, there's seven bills, we astronaut hard for -- we fought hard for and every single one of them ultimately was signed into law by the president of the united states. ow, i would be remiss if i didn't mention that the biggest

change, the most consequential hange to obamacare, the most open and full recognition that the president's health care law is unworkable and problematic and a burden is the fact that just a fewnt himself , through a july 2 blog post, department of , you ry blog post, said know what, i am going to suspend , postpone for a year the so-called employer mandate that is one of the key pillars of the obamacare law. what is that mandate?

mr. young: the mandate is that every employer across the united states of america who employees 50 or more persons -- employs 50 or more persons on a full-time basis must provide government-sanctioned, government-approved health insurance to their employees. not -- look, superphysically that sounds just great -- superficially that sounds just great. there are some problems here. first, this law redefines full time in a way that americans have never understood. what does full-time mean to you, i would say growing up in arkansas and 40 hours in a week or more. that's a common sense, practical application, would that be right? mr. young: yeah. i think, you know i have

traveled quite a bit and gotten people -- to know people around the country. full-time is 40 hours. where did this come from? out of thin air, presumably. mr. griffin: grinch the bottom ne is the -- mr. griffin:, the bottom line is the president recognizes the burden of his law and he said i'm going to postponethat part of the law. i'm basically going to repeal in effect, in effect, repeal that for a year, make that go away for a year as a practical matter. i applaud his recognition that the law has problems. the problem i had with that action, i still do not believe

that the president had the power to do that. if he wants the law changed, he should have called congress and we would have been more than happy to deliver up a bill, send it over to the senate that postponed the employer mandate a year. in fact, because of the president doing that, that's precisely what we did. that ntroduced h.r. 2667, in legislation, not through a regulatory change, a blog post, but i introduced the authority for mandate delay act, which we voted on, we passed on this floor. why? it does the same basic thing, little bit, but same basic thing what the president is doing so what he did would be legal. hat?

35 democrats supported this bill. 35 democrats supported this bill. i applaud them for doing it. mr. young: you, myself and so many other members of this body agreed with the substance of the president's blog post, but one would question whether we intend to be a nation of laws or instead a nation of blog posts. we could get into that separate conversation. i think fair-minded people agreed that the delay was appropriate. obamacare is not ready for prime time. the computer systems don't seem to be ready. employers are confused about how this law is going to work, how it's going to impact them. employees are confused. and something had to be done. but i think that recognition

that something had to be done only occurred because there were people in congress making arguments as they continued to make arguments with respect to the flaws in this legislation. and -- mr. griffin: there are many of us that believe this law is not working is because it will never work. it is unworkable by design. it is top-down. it is old way of doing things in a world that is becoming more network bottom-up, innovative, new way of doing things, this is an old central control top-down way of legislating. nd so the president recognized that. but because of partisan-politics reasons, even though my bill did

what he did, he opposed it. he opposed the bill that would have made his actions legal. and of course, now, it is sitting napping, because we hope to awake it, it's napping in the united states senate with your companion bill, the individual mandate delay. mr. young: kudos to the one of six colleagues on the other side of the aisle that joined us in voting for your bill -- mr. griffin: 35 democrats. mr. young: 35 in total? grin mr. griffin: that's right. mr. young: were supportive of your bill. that was the right vote to cast. it certainly preserved the precedent that is this body that

passes the laws, that develops the legislation. job of the executive branch to sign those various acts into law and then to execute them, not to recraft the laws as it might see convenient, for whatever motives. and you mentioned my bill, which is really in the end the american people's bill because it is designed to provide relief to the american families, the fairness for american families act. if the president wants to offer businesses a relief from the employer mandate tax as our supreme court has styled it, then why won't he offer relief for working americans and their families? it's that simple. and i have yet to hear an acceptable response. we are playing politics. well, are those one of nine

democrats who voted for my legislation also playing politics? i think they are being fair-minded. some would argue they are looking for political cover. i will let others assess that. but certainly, it's good legislation. it's fair and equitable legislation to accord the same sort of treatment to hard-working americans that the president would give to the community. and let me go on record that that business community needs relief, too. mr. griffin: one in nine voted of the democrats voted for your bill. i think it was 22 total. i think just a year or two ago, that would have been unthinkable that 35 would have joined voting for the employer mandate delay and 22 or so for your bill would have beeneca une we have been

relentless in pursuit of a better way. relentless in pursuit of real health care reform. relentless in identifying inletting folks in washington know that people back home, constituents, have made their voice very clear, where i live in car can saw on the issue -- arkansas on the issue of the affordable care act or obamacare. today in the ways and means committee, we had the head of e i.r.s. testify, and he was explaining why the president decided to delay for one year one of the two key components of the affordable care act. one being employer mandate and the other part of the law being the individual mandate. we know that the president delayed the employer mandate. and he was explaining why he did

that. and this is a paraphrase of what he did. the head of the i.r.s. describing why the president gave one-year relief to businesses impacted by the employer mandate. he said, to paraphrase, not a direct quote, he said, in effect, we heard from a lot of erican small businesses that this was a burden on them. and so we acted to give them relief. that's a paraphrase, but that's effectively what he said. i agree with the general sentiment. it is a burden on american workers and small businesses, et cetera. and they do need relief and i'm glad they're getting it. but it raises the question, why wouldn't you give that same

lief as a matter of fairness to individuals, families, workers impacted by the individual mandate, the other key component of obamacare, of the affordable care act? why would you give relief to small businesses and businesses and what have you, but not give relief to the individuals? it fundamentally doesn't make sense. it's not fair. and when he said that, i thought o myself, well, is it possible that he doesn't know that the ad of the i.r.s. and the administration doesn't know that individuals and families and workers are also impacted in a negative way? that they are burdened many of them by this law.

yes, they want health care reform. yes, people need insurance. yes, people want to be covered, but this isn't the way to go. does he not know the impact that this law is having? why don't we put all the opinion aside, the op eds, the editorialists, and why don't we just talk about some of the news headlines without my commentary. i thought you and i could just read some of the headlines. these are news stories. these are news stories, not op eds, not editorial writers, these are new stories from a variety of publications from around the country and i thought it would be instructtive to run through some of those tonight. and if you would help me tonight

. what i'll do here -- mr. young: there seem to be a lot there. how would you like to proceed? mr. griffin: i'll read through one of these up and you can read one and i'll take one. these are headlines from around the country and we are going to run through them because they are news stories that regardless of what you hear from this administration, this is what's happening around the country. the ap, florida insurance officials, rates will rise under obamacare. georgia insurance rights fight under obamacare. now, i would point out we don't have to guess what's going to happen anymore. we don't have to predict what's going to happen. why? because we're already there. implementation is under way. it's already happening.

so we'll just let the facts speak. chattanooga business owners says obamacare costing workers pay raises and benefits. consumers could see 25% premium increases under obamacare. asked student employees to work fewer hours. the times of concord said half of the. going to impact franklin standard workers. grocery store forced to cut hours. the "huffington post" reports that white castle indicates that obamacare is causing them to consider only hiring part-time workers. khn indicates wellpoint sees small employers dropping their health coverage.

mr. griffin: these are from all over the country. growing worries about obamacare, forcing insurers out of state markets. iowa public radio. full-time versus part-time workers, restaurants weigh obamacare. obamacare forces work hour imits for c.m.u. students. brevard cuts some workers' part-time hours to avoid obamacare rules. bamacare delay is a relay -- relief for a family businesses. mr. young: we are getting the sense that you know this health care law is not what we were told it would be, what that's w

medical device taxes to what was once a tanning tax. they're looking for revenue under every rock to make this thing sustainable. doesn't sustain costs. in my state, state of indiana, preliminary premiums are expected to go up 70%-plus. problems about access that we are hearing about that are captured in articles around the country, rural areas can expect to have a shortage of doctors as a direct result of this law and there are quality concerns. you know, i have just listed, my thoughts, on what health care reform ought to accomplish. all those various things ought to happen. unfortunately, obamacare is failing on every front. and i don't say this with any celebration. i lament the fact and it's all the more reason that we need to

continue to educate our colleagues and the minority of the american people who believe this is going to work. mr. griffin: maryland employers utting hours due to obamacare. waitress says she's losing full-time status due to the obamacare rule. int pete college, h.c.c. cut adjuncts' hours over health care. local entrepreneur sells part of business deuce to obamacare. -- due to obamacare. mr. young: forbes says labor unions are indicating that obamacare will shatter our health benefits. and cause nightmare scenarios. my recollection was that labor was very much behind this bill originally and i'd love to work

with them for any members of a union, any union leadership that's looking to to be part of the solution here and help alleviate some of the pain. welcome home. mr. griffin: i share your feeling there. i found common ground with a lot of labor union folks on the keystone pipeline because they want the jobs. mr. young: absolutely, yeah. mr. griffin: and here the labor unions are realizing, this is a nightmare. mr. young: their members, they're hearing from their members, leaders are. mr. griffin: the members are speaking out. here you see restaurant shift, sorry, just part-time. there's a theme here. workers' hours cut, obamacare blamed. and again, for those just tuning in, we're just reading news headlines. not op eds. these are news headlines, stories from around the country, everything from the weekly standard to the "huffington

post," the a.p., you name it. obamacare strikes, part-time jobs surge of to -- surge to all-time high. full-time jobs plunge. 6,500 working fewer hours due to obamacare mandate. one of the mandates we've been talking about here tonight. mr. young: press pause here before you read more of these headlines, which are incredibly illusttive and instructive. so many of them deal with the cut in the number of hours for our wage earners. during, you know, the worst economy since the great depression. and why's that happening? why's that happening? well, you know, you've got employers that are now mandated to provide health insurance to their employees and many of them, in order to remain change their st

way of doing business. so they change people from full-time into a part-time status. they hire people into part-time positions rather than full-time positions. and then we have perhaps most pathetically and tragically, we have what's been dubbed the 29er effect. where people are working more than 30 hours a week, many of whom are barely getting by, barely able to put food on the table, meet their utility bills and so on, they're getting dropped down to 29 or fewer hours. how is that helpful to the american people? and these are folks that the obama administration says are full-time. but they're really not full-time. they may be working 35 hours a week. don't even ha t full-time 40-hour week job, what we, what most folks across america know to be full-time.

and who can -- you know, we talked about this before, who said that 30 hours is full-time? a lot of folks, if they're working 35 hours, they're trying to make ends meet, they'd rather work 40 and get some overtime. but what's happening is they're being cut back below 30, which is not just the number of hours they work, it's simultaneously reducing the money they take home. mr. young: that's right, that's right. we have legislation here again to address this problem. the saving american workers act, lots of co-sponsors here in the house. mr. griffin: that's your bill. mr. young: i introduced the bill in response to the same sort of things i'm hearing from my colleagues who are in turn hearing from their constituents and the sort of things that i hear back home in indiana. which is this is absolutely ridiculous. we're helping very few people at

the expense of many. let's restore the definition of full-time as it's always been popularly understood and provide some relief. so we need to move forward on that. and continue to educate assess what's being reported across the country. mr. griffin: houston doctors to close doors because of obamacare. aetna letter warns customers, many people will pay more for health insurance under obamacare. east penn cuts cafeteria workers' hours to avoid obamacare. affordable care act insurance mandates leading some businesses to cut employees' work hours. limiting part-time hours, unintended result of health law. maybe the unintended consequences have something to do with the fact that they didn't know half of what was in the law in the first place. mr. young: that's right. you know, i've seen some indiana

headlines, a number of them related to some of these effects. one pops out right there for me. the indianapolis news, school part-timers fear fewer hours, less pay, as impact in health care law kicks in. let's not -- let's remember, these are not just businesses that are being impacted. we've got municipalities, school workers, you know, your businesses, especially in your hospitality industry or your retail sector, where we see a lot more people being hired on a part-time basis. seemingly every aspect of our economy and of our society is being adversely impacted by this law. now, that's not to say that some people aren't helped. all things being equal, if we can ensure a few more million people, that's a great thing. but with all the collateral damage created by this law, and

it's unsustainability, that's the real problem here. mr. griffin: and we can help those people. we can help those people through other means. as i said before, the idea that it's the obamacare model or nothing is a false choice. there are many other better patient-centered ways to do this, to reach the same goal. health care law causing s.e.c. to re-examine adjunct faculty members. local employers struggle with affordable care act. when employers are struggling, the workers are struggling. the families are struggling. obamacare glitch could make coverage unaffordable for low-wage workers. obamacare's $96 an hour cost spike may end 30-hour workweek. we're getting short on time so i think we ought to run through

these. i want to talk a little about where our bills are now. sitting at the other end of the capitol. and i want to urge our senate friends here in a minute to think about the opportunity they have. but let's take a quick look at these before we close out. may reduce part-time hours to void health care cost. fwcs cuts hours for part-time positions. measure copea community colleges staffs pinched by obama health law. dallas area cities school districts expect budget hits from affordable care act. and the good news just keeps on coming. there's a little sarcasm there. this is just awful. crung young out in colorado, -- mr. young: out in colorado, small businesses prepare for affordable care act changes. the world harold districts to cut back paraprofessionals' hours as a result of health care

law. it's even impacting paraprofessionals now. right now. beacon journal, limiting part-time hours to avoid health care costs, more of the same impact the yet more americans. requirements for health care reform are resulting in requirements for chesterfield county public schools. salt lake tribune, district cuts part-time workers hours. mr. griffin: and the final one here, and there's so many more, one that i actually didn't get up here was reported just tonight in ohio. they announced that premiums state-wide are going up 41%. triple-a parks full-time jobs, cites health law. agencies must cut some part-timers' hours or offer health insurance. part-time employee hours cut over health care. fast-food worker hours cut, new health care law blamed. i know we're short on time, we've got some other colleagues

that want to talk tonight, but i just want to close by first of all thanking my colleague, representative young of indiana, for being here with me. but i'd just like to point out that the employer mandate bill that mimics what the president did, that postpones the employer mandate for one year, we passed it here with 35 democrats, bipartisan. your bill, the individual mandate postponement, 22 democrats. we passed them out of here. we did our job. the worst they could say about my bill, the white house, is that it was redundant. so those bills are sitting down in the senate waiting for action. mr. young: yeah. redundant to the treasury department's blog post, bears reminding. they're sitting over there gathering dust as the american people demand relief. and it is so important, i want

thanking you for your leadership on this issue. those in arkansas are well represented by you on this and other matters, working very hard to ensure that where relief can be provided, we provide it. where the prerogatives of the legislative branch can be defended, you'll defend them. that's where i stand as well. we just need the united states senate to act. mr. griffin: and on the employer mandate delay, they should pass that immediately to make the president's actions legal and they should pass the individual mandate delay to make the president's actions fair. i appreciate you being here with me tonight. are you an outstanding member of the ways and means committee and i appreciate your leadership and

we're running out of time so i want to thank folks for joining us tonight and i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. under the speaker's announced policy of january 3, 2013, the gentleman from arizona, mr. franks, is recognized for the remainder of the time, until 10:00 p.m. as the designee of the majority leader. the gentleman from arizona is ecognized. mr. franks: i thank congressman griffin for the opportunity here. mr. speaker, i thank you here for yielding the time. mr. speaker, the tiny nation of israel began in ernest more than 3,000 years ago. since that time the people of israel have faced more heartaches, threats of annihilation, bigotry, torture

and genocide than any other people in the history of humanity. yet even today in 2013, against all odds and opposition, the noble people of israel remain. and the peace of israel continues to be the lynch pin of peace for the entire world. today israel faces another catastrophic challenge among the many in their long struggle throughout history. that threatens to end their existence as a nation. the greatest challenge israel faces today is the growing threat of a nuclear-armed iran. this is a menace that also threatens the peace and security of the entire family of mankind. mr. speaker, israel has been our truest friend and ally in the middle east now for approximately 65 years. and during that entire time, it has faced many unthinkable threats from enemies who desire to see its absolute annihilation . now more than ever before, the

united states of america and the nation of israel must stand together against the threat of a nuclear iran. and those who would see our two nations and all those we love and all those who love human freedom eradicated from the face of the earth. one of the most important signals that america can send that there is no space between us and israel is to transfer our embassy to an existing newly constructed consulate in jurem and make it clear that the united states recognizes divided as the un capital city. however, there has never been a more important time to do it because the world today including some of our more dangerous enemies doubt. and the actions of the obama administration would create such

doubt in any reasonable person's mind. when it was announced that the israeli government completed one more step in the permit process for building houses in jerusalem, the obama administration openly rebuked israel and demanded that they do several things for building houses for its citizens. mr. speaker, i cannot tell you how bewildering it is for me as an american congressman to hear our own president expressing more outrage towards israel for building homes in its own capital city than he has expressed toward a madman like ahmadinejad which threatens the peace and security of the entire world. mr. obama demanded that the permits be canceled despite the fact that every prime minister of israel has allowed them in their capital. president obama told netanyahu

to make a substantial gesture towards the palestinians and release palestinian prisoners. and the palestinians have made no such concessions. every , mr. speaker, concession that israel has made for decades has been met and responded to by violence and terror. nevertheless, president obama is continuing to insist that israeli publicly state -- that israel publicly state its willingness to negotiate the division of jerusalem and right of return of millions of refugees to israel. indeed, mr. speaker, no president in our history has been more bent upon isolating our friends and emboldening our enemies as this president. and mr. speaker, it places israel in a great con nun drum for on the one hand they take military action to halt iran's

nuclear program, the world, including this administration, will openly condemn them and face hostility from the international community. on the other hand, if they do not take action and they allow iran to gain nuclear weapons, they face the real and imminent possibility that iran will unleash a nuclear hell on earth that will destroy their tiny homeland. perilous beyond description that the leader of the free world doesn't seem to understand the gravity of allowing iranian regime and the government of iran today to gain nuclear weapons capability. it is vital for those of us in congress to make it clear that america's commitment to israel remains steadfast and israel's enemy is america's enemy. once again, mr. speaker, america should take a major effort and make a major statement to that effect by transferring our

embassy to israel's capital city, jerusalem. this would require nothing from america taxpayers and could sell the embassy in tel aviv. this is something that we need to do for the sake of making it clear to the world that we will stand by israel. america has established bilateral relations with so many nations across the world and in each case, we have recognized their capital city. yet when it has come to the state of israel, our most critical and cherished ally on this earth, israel's capital city jerusalem is the only one in the world which we have yet to recognize. ironicically, mr. speaker, it was america that was the first nation on earth to recognize israel as a nation. a mere 11 minutes after israel's declaration.

president harry truman said, quote, i had faith in israel before it was established and i have faith in it now. it has a glorious future before it, just not as another sovereign nation but embodyment of the great ideals of human civilization, unquote. if america now ignores the opportunity to be the first to fully recognize jerusalem as israel's capital city, can we truly claim we are israel's nearest and dearest friend and can we say we are committed to our own principles. the majority of israel's citizens and leaders have yearned by the people of the united states for so very long. israel capital city houses its government framework and the israeli parliament, the supreme court, the bank of israel, it's diplomatic corps, the ministry of foreign affairs and jerusalem

surrounds many of israel's most holy remembrances, including the tombs of the fallen soldiers as well as the symbol of the most insidious injustice ever endured by the jewish people. the holocaust museum. mr. speaker, not so long ago, one of the members of this house said very arrogantly, he said, i don't take sides for or against israel, and i don't take sides for or against hezbollah. and i believe, mr. speaker, that that is more dangerous, that kind of moral aquifflens, that kind of moral neutrality, that's more dangerous to how manity. ronald reagan gave an address in 1983 when the world faced a similar threat in the growing

strength and nuclear ambition of the soviet union. he stated, quote, i urge you to beware of the temptation to ignore the facts of history and the aggressive impulses of an evil empire. to call the arms race a giant misunderstanding and thereby remove yourself from the struggle, right and wrong, good and evil. we cannot remove ourselves from that struggle. let us be reminded we have been here before. the free nations of the world had the opportunity to address the insidious rise of the nazi ideology, when it could have been dispatched, but they delayed and the result was atomic bombs falling on cities. 50 million people dead worldwide and nearly plunging the planet into darkness. you know, it is said those who survived the holocaust achieved

their revenge through simply living. rather than allowing their faith and their hopes to be crushed by the atrocities of the past, they chose instead to dry their tears and to look up and to begin building again. and indeed they did build again. they built a future and a family and a community and a nation. mr. speaker, the god of jacob honored their courage. the threat of the nazis is no more. and one day this threat of global jihad will be no more. mr. speaker, recognizing jerusalem as the rightful capital of israel is not from foreign at try bulets and powers, but the nobel act of courage and justice that comports to what america is. e must now act and recognize her restored city, jerusalem. together, we can ensure that jerusalem continues to be a

center for answered prayers and dreams come true. and i pray that the united states will be the first nation to officially and formally recognize israel's capital city and to transfer our embassy to jerusalem. his will undenbly reaffirm our commitment and resolve on behalf ofial and we will be standing on our own declaration of independence as well, mr. speaker, as well on the right side of history. with that, mr. speaker, i would just pray that the light of god's peace will shine down upon the streets of jerusalem forever. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. does the gentleman have a motion to adjourn? mr. franks: i move we adjourn. the speaker pro tempore: the question is on the motion to adjourn. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. the ayes have it. and the motion is adopted.

>> the house republicans leadership has been taking aim

at the government abuse. they will try to whip up some of the anti-washington fervor that they believe appeals to their base. there is a package of eight bills they have been passing. they take aim at federal workers who have been the hating badly, or do things that are making average citizens feel more empowered. the white house would be the most prominent opponent. they slap a veto threat on this, saying that it is an unprecedented restriction of government rulemaking that has no justification. most of the congressional democrats are against it. it is unlikely the controlled sendt that the democratically controlled senate would pick it up.

he have to abide by laws that give them power to make the rules. they have to do cost estimates. the administration says it is doing great efforts to minimize regulations. limboould send them into through the process that it has prescribed. >> is this meant to be brought abuse? a one-size-fits-all approach. they say there is about 85 rules each of the have an economic million or more. the mentioned among others, , that seem toity do these rule t maud these arehe five rules per year, who determines that? who says this is going to have

an impact of $100 million or more? >> this is objected to government cost estimates. when they publish the rules, they have cost estimates throughout the rules that are coming out for the healthcare overhaul. way that onced a a determination is made, to basically say that this cannot be implemented unless congress specifically passes a law that implements the rule. >> you mentioned that the white house is opposed to the bill. the of -- they have issued a statement. you do not think the senate will take it up. why the hell spending its time bringing to the >> specifically, this law, if you disapprove of government regulation, you use an act that requires both chambers to

require this approval, the president signature before the lockerbie walked back. this gives congress the upper hand by designating majority leaders to say yes, we approved this rule. it actually has legislation that basically endorses each rule that they find favor with. thes essentially giving legislative branch the upper hand in the rulemaking process. cq's morning briefing. thank you for being with us. >> the white house said today that it is extremely disappointed in russia's decision to give asylum to edward snowden. that is next on c-span. we will get reaction from john boehner, and the acting head of

the irs testifies about the apple mentation of the healthcare law. this weekend on c-span, live coverage of the national governors association's summer meeting in milwaukee. this where -- and the global economy. omeday, whether noon -- sunday, live at noon. of8 from the assassination martin luther king jr., jfk, and the tet offensive. jay carney said earlier that the administration is extremely disappointed that they have temporaryone-year asylum to edward snowden in russia.

>> is the decision from russia a rebuke of president obama? they have issued mr. snowden temporary asylum for one year and allowed him to leave the airport. we are extremely disappointed that the russian government would take this step despite our very clear and lawful requests in public and private to have expelled to the united states to face the charges against him. mr. snowden is not a whistleblower. he is accused of leaking classified information and has been charged with three felony counts. he should be returned to the united states as soon as possible where he will be accorded full due process and protections. russiane by the government undermines a long- standing record of law enforcement, cooperation.

>> russia says they are not going to send him back. what is the effort from the administration to get him to return to face prosecution? >> we will be in contact with the russian authorities expressing our extreme disappointment in this decision thataking the case clearly there is absolutely goal justification for mr. snowden to be returned to the united states where he is under indictment on three felony charges for leaking classified information. he is not a dissident or a whistleblower. he has been charged with a crime and he will be accorded upon return all of the rights and privileges provided to defendants under our system of justice. cleare made that view

both publicly and privately. in our discussions with the russian government. i'm sure those discussions will continue. i don't have a scheduling announcement for you today, but obviously this is not a positive development and we have a wide range of interests with the russians and we are evaluating the utility of a summit. >> do you see this as a deliberate attempt to embarrass united states, as senator mccain says? this is an unfortunate development and we are truly disappointed. we have made clear there is legal justification for his return, that he would be full rights accorded to defendants in this country and under our system of justice.

a terms of motivations for decision like this, i believe russian authority to describe them. >> what are the diplomatic repercussions for this move? are there some action to can take? >> darlene asked me about moscow. i made clear i don't have an announcement today. evaluating the utility of a summit in light of this and other issues but i have no announcement today. >> are you rethinking this recess in the u.s.-russian relations that hillary clinton had begun? russia,elationship with as is the case with other important countries around the world, is based in realism. it is a simple called reset in our relations produced positive benefits for american national

security, for the american people. it produced cooperation from russia on the transit of and materials to our trip in afghanistan. it provided cooperation with russia in dealing with iran. it led to cooperation leading to the new start treaty. it provided other forms of cooperation that benefit the united states and the american people, and our national security. through the process of the evolution of our relations with russia over the past four and a half years, we have had conflicts with russia, we have had disagreements with russia. we have been extremely clear about those disagreements. most recently and seriously over syria. that has been the case and will be the case moving forward, but as those who might suggest that

we should not have engaged in russiansts with the upon president obama's taking office, i would then say that the benefits that were a result of that engagement were not worth it and i don't think that's the case. >> what do you think the russians are up to? obviously, by granting mr. snowden temporary asylum, they must have known this was not going to go over well but they did it anyway. what do you think they are up to ? >> i'm not going to describe motives. i think the russian officials can't speak for themselves. we're are obviously very disappointed in this development. a broadband important relationship with russia that encompasses areas of cooperation and agreement as well as areas .f disagreement and conflict

we had long stated as had president putin that we did not want the issue of mr. snowden to become a problem in our bilateral relationship because of its breadth and importance. we will obviously assess this and be in confrontation with the russian government moving forward. >> you say mr. snowden is not a whistleblower, but given the fact the house last week had a vote on these programs that came very close to delivering a blow to these programs, there has been hearings going on this week. patrick leahy, chair of the judiciary committee, has questioned the utility of these programs and they're having lawmakers over at the white house today, some of whom have called into question some of these programs. didn't mr. snowden in some sense into the american people and people around the world a favor and disclosing these programs given the outrage expressed about them? >> when you take an oath to

protect the secrets of the united states, you are bound to protect them and there are consequences if you don't and there are procedures in place for whistleblowers that are available to those who would blow the whistle, if you will. the unauthorized leaking of andsified information has can do enormous damage turn national security interests those are just the facts. out -- if helaim did not come out and described them, we would never know. he would still be in the united states. >> obviously, there has been a revealed because of the release of unauthorized classified information but the fact of the matter is that these are programs that have been reviewed and overseen by

and reports that contain within them the that are designed to achieve the balance that is necessary between our security and our privacy and the that het has made clear wants that balance, supports that balance, believes the balance has been found, but also believes that there ought to be a debate about these issues, a discussion about these issues. he's engaged in that. is meeting this afternoon, as i'm sure you know, with members of congress, both republican and democrat, both from the senate and the house on these issues at including members who have been very critical of the programs that we have been discussing under section 215 and

702. the fact is our intelligence services need to have tools available to them to help protect our national security interests, protect us from attack and i think most americans would agree with that. we also design our programs in a way and put in safeguards and layers of oversight to ensure that those programs do not abuse the privacy of american citizens. that is the balance the president was talking about. that is the balance that has been a focus of the implementation of these programs and there is an ongoing discussion about these programs under the administration through odni releasing more information about them in the wake of the snowden lakes and i'm sure that process will continue. i don't think we can sensibly say the program is designed to

protect us from terrorist necessary inot this day and age. >> the president believes these programs should have been kept a secret? bunch ofe conflating a things here. the we authorization of the patriot act, fisa, these are known facts. there's no question there are details about programs that are now known because of these leaks. the president believes that it leak highlyiate to sensitive classified information because it can, and has done harm for national security interests and put people's lives in danger. >> can you explain to the american people, is this just a legal issue? they are upset because they did not follow extradition procedures? the snowden still have in his

possession things the united states government are concerned about the could be turned over to russian intelligence? >> it is certainly not just a legal matter. there is the nature of our relations with russia, the in an of the release unauthorized fashion of classified information and the possible release of more. let's be clear. mr. snowden, since he left the , he has been in possession of classified russial in china, and in and simply, the possession of that kind of highly sensitive classified information outside of security areas is both a huge

risk and a violation. as we know, he has been in russia now for many weeks. i cannot get into further detail or whatat he possesses kind of disclosures there may be but there is huge risks associated with, as anyone who works in this building and handles classified information knows, removing that information from secure areas. you should not do it. you can't do it. it's wrong. >> am not minimizing the other issues, but is he still a danger? >> i refer you to the intelligence community for damage assessments in terms of damage that has occurred and could occur. i'm not the right person to respond in detail about that.

>> they said he had not spoke to russian president vladimir putin. as he placed on a call since then? >> i forget how long ago he spoke with president putin on this matter, but they discussed range of issues. thean you express president's personal disappointment about this turn of events? >> it is reflected in the words i just spoke. very disappointed, extremely decision to on the provide temporary asylum for mr. snowden. we have made clear both rightly and publicly that there was ample legal justification for his expulsion from russia and return to the united states. that's a discussion we have had with russia as well as other countries that might have been providing asylum to mr. snowden. think,iews were, i

clearly stated both publicly and privately so i don't think there was any confusion. >> has the russian government let the administration know ahead of time? >> no. click senator mccain in addition to calling this a slap in the face said the administration not to look at a wide range of possible reactions among them, the expansion of nato to include georgia and more efforts to deal with incidents. are those things you would broadly acknowledge that could be part of the menu of options before the administration in reaction? >> we are still reaching out to russian government authorities and counterparts to get a formal confirmation of this information that has been publicly announced and to have discussions, further discussions, about the decision and what has happened here and

argue that mr. snowden should be expelled and returned to the united states. i don't want to speculate -- i won't speculate about consequences or next steps. even on the issue that darlene raised. you know i don't have anything to announce at this point. >> now, we will get reaction from house speaker john boehner on the russian decision to grant asylum former nsa contractor edward snowden. speaker john boehner also talked about the budget process in this 10 minute briefing. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> good morning, everyone. yesterday i met with the house chairman leading the investigation on benghazi. the chairman has been doing good work, much of it behind the again, but i stress once

that we need to get to the bottom of what happened that terrible night, why it happened, and how we can prevent similar tragedies in the future. are also continuing to investigate the irs for its abusive power. there is nothing phony about these scandals, mr. president. when four americans are dead, not when the agency when enforcing your health care law has been harassing because of their political beliefs. the american people deserve answers and we will continue to fight for the truth, no matter how badly the administration wants to sweep these issues under the carpet. learned thatk, we our economy continues to muddle along at an unacceptable pace. this is yet another reminder that under president obama's unemployment,

stagnant wages. it's bad enough that he continues to block the keystone pipeline, which his own administration says would mean tens of thousands of new jobs. this week, he actually much of the project and the jobs that it would create. i don't know how he can look americans in the eye you are struggling and see that there is anything to joke about. president obama's economy is no laughing matter. that's why house republicans continue to work on our plan for economic growth in real jobs in our country. looking forward, washington must confront some serious choices that we are going to deal with this fall. president obama and his party in the house and senate are in denial about washington's spending problem. they have not come to terms with the fact that we must deal with the spending problem, honestly and forthrightly, our kids and grandkids will face a much him or future.

we won't have prosperity unless we address these massive deficits and debt that is hurting our economy and jeopardizing the american dream. our members are ready to solve this problem. we showed leadership. we have passed a balanced budget. does the president have the courage to stand up to his own party and work with us to truly solve the problem? i hope so. >> they said that it showed turning their back on the bending -- on the spending levels in the ryan budget. your response? >> we had some 50 amendments yet to consider on that bill and considering everything else we have going on this week, decided that dealing with finishing that bill in september was the right step at this moment, but i have

full confidence that the votes would have been there to pass the bill. >> mr. speaker, there has been [indiscernible] criticismard some specifically about the irs. can you elaborate on that in particular? and to those who are naysayers, what do you say to them? evidence and it should be noted, as i recall, she used to work there. we clearly have some relationships with the people she worked with over there, but i think our committees are continuing to work to get to the bottom of this and i will let the facts speak for themselves. >> john mccain and a few other senate republicans talked about a grand bargain.

we welcome all the conversations we can have. we all know what the problem is. i'm well aware of what they are talking about and i have made clear that we have a spending problem. we have to deal with the spending problem that we have. [indiscernible] actions haven's hurt the ability of our country to protect our citizens and i would hope that president obama onld engage president putin this issue and resolve it in a way that is satisfactory to the american people. >> engage in what way? >> i will let him decide the best way to engage the president.

>> he told committee members he wants to do a markup of the bill in late october. is that something that you would work and can you talk about how tax reform might fit into the house schedule this year? >> talking about appropriations generally given the progress in both chambers on these bills, what is the likelihood of a continuing resolution? >> it's clear we won't have the appropriation bills finished by september 30. i believe a continuing resolution for some short time would probably be in the nation's interests, having said operating for of an entire year under acr is not a good way to do business i have been working with chairman way toto try to find a actually do all of these

appropriations bills. i think it's important for congress to do its work. yes? from chairmannt rogers yesterday, he seems pretty clear that this is a rejection of both the ryan budget levels -- >> i met with the chairman yesterday and his committee. the appropriators have a tough job over the last couple of years. toughe taken a lot of votes in their committee, so i understand the frustration that they are dealing with, but i just want to make clear that sequestration will remain in effect until the president agrees to cut reforms that will allow us to remove it. the president insisted on the sequester that none of us wanted to, none of us liked. smarter ways to cut spending. the house has moved twice over the last year and a half to replace the sequester and we saw

no action in the united states senate. if they want the sequester to go, we are going to have to get serious about our long-term spending problem. >> the perception between the transportation bill yesterday, the failed farm bill vote and eric cantor's health care vote that republican leadership has lost control of the floor for their conference and mr. hoyer just said that it is very divided -- >> i have made it very clear that just because it came to the florida did not have to pass. i allow working the house and that's the way that the founders intended for the house to work, more members participating in what is happening on the floor than what we've seen in a long time.

i'm not the least bit concerned about what some might want to describe as a perception. [indiscernible] >> doesn't make it more different -- difficult to keep the government open? >> we will take it one step at a time and i'm sure the august recess will have our members in a better mood when they come back. [laughter] david. >> will the crv part of obamacare? >> no decisions have been made on going forward with acr. >> what do you say to the ? there's a real sense of frustration. what is your message to them? >> continutoork with us. they have a tough job and i certainly recognize the tough job that we, the conference,

have given them and they have done very good work. it's august. the members have been at it for a while. we have four hundred 35 people trying to come to an agreement. sometimes they get frustrated. they got frustrated yesterday. >> the house has ample time to address certain issues that are outstanding. that that they think it is a huge deal going into recess. what do you say to your critics [indiscernible] >> thank you all. >> transcanada has announced plans to build a pipeline within

canada as the keystone xl pipeline stalls in washington. on the next "washington about thetalking proposed keystone pipeline then california congressman joining us to discuss federal budget negotiations and the prospect of the house passing an immigration bill. we will also take your phone .alls, e-mails, and tweets "washington journal" live every morning at 7:00 a.m. on c-span. >> we've never really known what to do with our first lady than that is particularly true in more recent times. on the one hand, they are expected to have causes. you cannot imagine a first lady today without a cause. on the other hand, they are not permitted to intrude upon lawmaking or unofficial

capacity. it has always been a tight rope. seeing how each of these women walk that tightrope tells you a lot not only about them but about the institution and society that they represented. >> next week, we begin our encore presentation of art original series, "first ladies -- influence and image." the influence on a presidency. next week, martha washington all the way to angelica van buren. >> next, members of a house panel question an irs official about taxes and subsidies in the healthcare law. acting iressa commissioner testifying along with gary: from the centers for medicare and medicaid services. the house ways and means committee hearing is just over three hours.

good morning. the hearing will come to order.

in testimony before this committee, secretary saville yes repeatedly told congress and the american people -- secretary sibelius said that it was "on track to meet the october deadline" for the new healthcare law, however the evidence is showing just the opposite is true. in june, the gao released two reports which raised serious questions about whether the center for medicare and medicaid services, cms, would be able to have federally run exchanges up and running by october 1, 2013 noting numerous reasons for their concerns. in late july, the treasury inspector general for tax administration stated testing for the exchanges would be difficult to complete before the october 1 date and as a result americans will see significant delays and errors. the fourth of july holiday, the administration announced the delay of a major provision of the law, the employer mandate giving

employers relief but doing nothing to aid hard-working americans. three days later, health and human services announced they would rely on self verification when it comes to who gets subsidies. just this week, we learned that by delaying the mandate, and other $12 billion of be added to the deficit and it will increase federal spending by $3 billion in new exchange subsidies because the delay will result in fewer employers offering coverage. these facts at hand, you will have to forgive me if i'm skeptical of the claims that everything is "on track." three years since it has passed and then just 60 days, they are due to be up and running. we still do not have answers to many crucial questions and, worse yet, nor do the american people. is the average hard-working taxpayers supposed to navigate this in just a few short months when they have provided no information as to what the real costs will be or what the insurance will look like.

my democraticf colleagues, "when is the white house going to actually get up and go?" limitation about of were not enough, almost daily, we are reminded of the affected tapping on the economy. businesses are struggling to figure out how it will comply with the law and whether they will have to cut hours, wages, come fly. order to one small business owner testified before this committee that as a business owner, they worked on the fourth of july, worried about it, fielding calls from other franchisees about what it meant on the fourth of july. -- our jobators creators deserve better. american people need questions answered. why are my premiums skyrocketing? how can i expand my business when i am being hit by all of these new regulations and red tape. why am i losing the insurance i have and like?

notf college students were struggling enough with dim job prospects, this puts an even greater burden on the young. central michigan university in mount pleasant, michigan, said they will limit college student work hours to 25 hours a week. as one student said, students use that money to pay for financing school and it's going to become increasingly hard for them to pay for school when we can only work 25 hours. as if americans did not have reason enough to fear the irs, we now know it's in no position to implement the 47 new powers and authorities given under the new healthcare law. it's likely they will be at even a greater risk of having their identity stolen or private taxpayer information leaked. even the treasury inspector general less than two weeks ago stated the irs will struggle to compete -- complete all required testing and they're not confident about the ability to

protect confidential taxpayer information or protect fraud. this is becoming increasingly unfair, unworkable, untenable. with just three months left, patients, doctors, they will have more questions than answers. i look for to hearing an honest, straightforward assessment from our witnesses this morning. with that, yield to mr. levin for his opening statement. welcome to the two of you. we look forward to your testimony to dispel some much of today, theen said committee is holding a hearing entitled, "the status of the affordable care act implementation." under the pretense -- the pretense -- that house republicans are interested in implementation of the landmark law. the truth is just the opposite. it is evidenced by what house justlicans plan to do in

24 hours. they're going to push a bill through the house entitled, "keep the irs offshore healthcare act." it would prohibit any funding for the irs to implement the affordable care act. i don't know how more negative or destructive you can be than that. republicans have made it plain over the last three years that their sole interest -- their sole interest -- is to disrupt the law's implementation. tomorrow's vote will be their last action, their last action, before adjourning for a five the recess, a fitting signoff for a conference whose singular obsession with the healthcare law repeal of her the last three years has come at the expense of so many other issues that are

critically important to american families and the overall economy. by the time they leave here friday for summer recess, republicans will have voted no fewer than 40 times two repeal obamacare. the republican mission is clear. implement -- destroy. explain can republicans why they occupied so much time and wasted countless taxpayer 40 repeal votes that stand no chance of being enacted while refusing to go to conference to enact a budget into law? can they explain why they have leaned on outside organizations including the national football league, to discourage them from educating americans about current law, health insurance opportunities

and assistance that will be available through the marketplace. whyelse can they explain they have worked so hard to discourage states from expanding their medicare programs? even when fully federally funded, which will prevent millions of the most vulnerable americans from gaining access to health .are coverage it is so vividly on display this week as they have sought to deny the obama administration funding needed to implement. how can you say you're interested in implementation when you try to destroy the funding? if they were truly interested in the affordable care act and limitation,, they would inform their constituents that a simple three page application for

single americans purchasing on the exchange and neither, and i emphasize this and i hope the witnesses will speak to this, and neither the irs nor the department of health and human services will have access to or otherecords personal history. instead, what do we see? scare tactics and other misguided efforts to convince constituents that to apply for healthcare coverage will be time-consuming and cumbersome. whileknown for quite a that the republicans have no interest in ensuring that americans understand what even speaker boehner himself has acknowledged. aca is the law of the land. toir only interest is

misinform, misconstrue, and mislead the american public about aca. even conservative republican senator ted cruz chastise the republican effort in the house this week. "there ared i quote, a lot of politicians in washington who love empty symbolic votes. the house has voted 39, 40, 41 times? i can't keep track two repeal obamacare. those votes were by and large empty, symbolic votes that had zero chance of passing." in a sense, they are not symbolic. they are part of a destructive mission. thanks to both of you for coming to gay and almost look forward to your testimony -- you for coming today. we are sure you will tell the facts and tell them emphatically. i also want to ask unanimous

consent that the following from the american enterprise institute be inserted in the record. >> without objection. thank you, mr. levin. it is my pleasure to welcome our two witnesses, both of whom bring a great deal of experience and hopefully a great deal of answers. he gary telling, the deputy insurancetor for oversight from the center for medicaid and medicare services and secondly, the principal deputy commissioner and deputy commission for enforcement at the irs. thank you both for being with us today. the committee has received each of your written statements and they will be made part of the formal record. you will each be recognized for five minutes for formal remarks and then we will go to questions from the committee. mr. cohen, you're recognized for five minutes. camp,d morning, chairman representative levin, members of

the committee. the cms has been hard at work implementing strong consumer protections to hold companies more accountable, give them more coverage options, and improve the value of that coverage. cms hard at work. thousands of people all across the country are hard at work to make sure that americans will of ave the benefits transformed health insurance market. they are employees with health plans designing new products that provide greater runout value and they are the staff at state insurance departments reviewing those products to make sure that the rates charged are fair and reasonable. they are people and communities in every state all across the country who are preparing to help people in rolling coverage beginning in october. most americans receive insurance in connection with their jobs and for those, particularly those who work for large employers, the system has worked well. for the 15% of americans who don't have coverage through their employer, medicare,

system ischip, the broken. before the affordable care act, many young people and those with low incomes could not afford insurance eating millions without coverage. women could be charged 50% more than men. insurance was not affordable for many smaller employers because of the type of work that they do or because they have one worker with high medical costs. americans are benefiting from some of the affordable care act insurance reforms. 3 million additional young adults under the age of 26 are their parents plants and 18 million children with pre-existing conditions now cannot be denied coverage. new scrutiny of rating freezes have saved americans an estimated $1 billion and in 2014, being a woman will no longer be a pre-existing condition. months from today, the marketplaces will provide a new way to shop for coverage for the uninsured, those with existing conditions, and individuals who

buy at high costs. they will begin shopping in the marketplaces and they will be able to fill out one application to purchase private insurance qualify for premium tax credits, and reduce coverage sharing. many of the americans who will shop have never had health the process of selecting, implying, and in rolling will be unfamiliar to them. to reach these populations, cms is providing outreach, education, enrollment assistance in a variety of ways. in june, we relaunched a new consumer focus health care.gov website and a call center to help americans prepare for open enrollment and ultimately to sign up for private health insurance. thousands of consumers have contacted us via the live web chat or our toll- free number. we have already had over one million visitors. consumers in the marketplaces will also be able to get in person help from navigators, in

person the sisters, trusting the people connected to their community who can help them walk through the process of applying for coverage. they can also work with insurance agents and brokers as in the market today. these insurance plans in the marketplace will be affordable. we are already seeing evidence that marketplaces are ensuring on price.them compete for the facilitated marketplaces, cms has gotten qualified submissions for more issuers. in many, some are lower than expected, 18% less than cbo estimates. in some cases, they are lower than the current premiums they are paying today. some have released initial bids only to have them request to amend them to make them lower in order to be more competitive. news for consumers. many of whom will be able to afford health insurance for the first time and many will be eligible for help with premiums

and out-of-pocket costs through tax credits and cost-sharing reductions. cms has already finished developing most of the services for open enrollment including a routing tool to help verify status information that consumers provide against existing data sources. the marketplace will be up and running on october 1 when millions more americans will have access to high-quality, more affordable health coverage. moreking coverage affordable, improving the value of insurance coverage, protecting consumers, we are paving the way for fairer, more transparent, more accessible marketplaces. thank you for the opportunity to discuss the important work to improve access to affordable healthcare coverage for all americans and and they look forward to your questions. >> you're recognized now for five minutes. >> chairman camp, ranking member levin, thank you for the

opportunity to appear before you today to discuss the work the irs has been doing to the fill our responsibilities under the affordable care act. the irs is charged with implementing the tax related provisions of the aca. our most substantial effort in this regard involves the delivery of premium tax credits that will help millions of tax -- american families afford health insurance starting in 2014 when the new health insurance marketplace, affordable insurance exchanges, will begin operating. is the lead agency on defining the structure and operations of the marketplace. open enrollment for insurance purchases will start october 1, 2013, with coverage beginning as soon as january 1, 2014. when an individual seeks to purchase insurance and seek financial assistance, the marketplace must determine what assistance, if any, the applicants may qualify for such as dedicated or the premium tax

credit. to make that determination, the marketplace will request federal taxpayer data from us and we will provide from each applicant some limited tax data from the applicant's most recently filed federal income tax return. it is important to understand exactly how this information will be transferred from the irs to the marketplace. hhs as aesignates conduit for information being shared with the marketplace. the taxpayer data supplied by the iressa will be transmitted over secure encrypted channels to the hhs federal data services hub which was developed to facilitate these data transfers. this data hub will not be storing taxpayer information but merely routing the information to authorized users. at no time is the tax data to be displayed to anyone outside of itself.etplace the irs is also responsible for

providing a computational service if the marketplace determines that the applicant is eligible for and interested in advanced payments of the premium tax credit which are sent to the individual's insurance company. without identifying the applicant, the marketplace will submit a few data elements including income, family size for the competition will services for the hhs data hub and receive back a single figure. that figure will represent the maximum tax credit resulting from the data input. nothing in this computational process identifies individuals or contains tax data. on focus for october 2013 is preparing for the marketplace to begin operating, the irs has been preparing for the 2015 filing season. beginning with 2014 tax returns , eligible individuals will be able to claim the credit on their returns and will be required to reconcile any

advances already paid to their insurance company on their behalf. these taxpayers, the irs must balance the need to promptly process accurate returns with the need to identify and stop any erroneous claims for the credit. to facilitate this process, the marketplaces will be sending to informationllment for individuals purchasing coverage through those marketplaces. this transactional information will be transmitted over secure encrypted channels and will include the cost of coverage and information on any advanced payments of the premium tax credit made during the coverage insurancee taxpayer's company on their behalf while certain identifying information, name and social security number, required to support the processing of returns, no personal health information will ever be provided. the irs will reconcile the for the report on the tax return so that the irs

can verify whether they receive the proper amount of credit, our food more, or must repay any excess of vance payment. this information will help the irs beat up the processing of returns and the spot erroneous claims. the irs already routinely see third-party information to verify the accuracy and we have a long-standing policy in place related to the safety and privacy of this information. we will use this experience to guide us in making sure that any aca related taxpayer information we receive is properly safeguarded. in addition to the data, tools, and system the irs uses to battle tax fraud, we have some particular tools for enforcing proper payments at the premium tax credit. as mentioned above, the marketplaces will be providing the irs with key 2014 transactional data prior to the beginning of the 2015 tax filing system. positioneds pre-

enrollment data will allow the irs to more effectively detect erroneous claims for the credit. chairman camp, ranking member levin, that concludes my statement. i would be happy to take your questions. >> thank you both very much. committee hashe long been concerned about the integrity of the use of taxpayer dollars and the irs possibility -- and the irs's ability. the is obviously independent nonpartisan watchdog of the irs and the treasury. it has previously been reported that there are massive amounts of improper payments and those are payments under the irs's authority. therts last year by nonpartisan inspector general estimated the irs will issue over $21 billion in fraudulent claims and more recently, the inspector general general found million irs allowed $46

in fraudulent tax refunds to go to a single mailing address in georgia. this comes on the heels of a 2010 inspector general report that reported the irs would to $65 billionon before it could enact efforts to stop this fraud and these are efforts i have raised with your predecessor for a number of years as well. obviously, these facts are very troubling. that same nonpartisan inspector "theal testified,", existing protection systems may not be capable of identifying refund, or fraud schemes prior to the issuance of the tax refund." obviously, this is unacceptable. how do you expect the american people to believe that their hard-earned tax dollars are going to be protected?

what are you doing about these long-standing and ongoing problems? the futureal in given the inspector general's testimony. >> thank you for the question and i have a few responses. we could have a separate fraud and about improper payments and other parts of the code like the earned income tax credit, but let me spend some time here. there are some differences with the way the irs footprint works from the eia tc -- eitc. there are two key things i want to share with you. first, when an individual comes in to get premium tax credit ce, no funds are shared directly with the taxpayer. the money goes to the insurance company. that individual never received the money. they get economic and if it, access to insurance, less expensive premiums, but different from the eitc.

towhether they qualifies up them because the hhs said they will self verify. they will say whether they qualify. correct? >> as i mentioned in my opening remarks, we provide hhs and then they provide the marketplace information about the income level. the information will validate what the income may be in the based on the historical information of what the taxpayer data says now. >> i am correct on the self verify that taxpayers will determine whether they qualify? >> i believe the question for mr. cohen. click; don.? that? am i correct on whoill verify every person applies for subsidies through the marketplaces and we will do that through -- >> stop. that there is

going to be a self verification system. did they not make that announcement? we're going to be coming out with additional guidance today today, i think, or tomorrow. >> they did make that announcement. >> we said we were going to be doing a sampling and we are going to announce that we are sampling 100%. >> so there is new information? can you elaborate? how much say, this is my income was or is going to be. on the person puts application is checked against the available data sources from irs, social security, disability income income, equus fax, a well-known -- >> you will not have the current taxpayer information until after they file. >> they are looking at the prior year tax returns. we cannot match, if there is no match, if we cannot verify, we will ask for further

information and documentation such as pay stubs from every applicant. toone other thing i want add. in addition to the taxpayer themselves not receiving funds, the money goes directly to the insurance company. >> they do get the subsidy. cashs, but they never get in hand. they get cheaper -- >> in terms of the american taxpayer being protected from in fraudulent subsidies, that is an outstanding issue whether the individual gets a cash payment or not, there is still -- >> if there is a mistake there, it is a loss to the treasury. >> which is the american people. >> if i could make one more point. the irs will have a report from the exchange and it will have detailed information to let us validate if this individual has a relationship with the exchange and we will know whether they payments.the premium

we will have more information to reconcile that individual's tax return than we have in other some, so there are mitigating elements that will help us reduce the incidence of potential erroneous cases. >> will the irs enforce the mandate that businesses offer acceptable coverage next year? >> here's how that's going to work. i think you're referring to that we have, in future years, after the 2015 filing, we rely on an employer report and it will not -- rovided >> but next year. >> we are looking at other alternative reports and information to help validate the employer offer and that is under development right now with the employer community, the business community in light of the fact that the employer report is not going to occur until filing season 2016. we are working with them now to look at alternative raise --

ways to validate the offer of coverage. >> did i not read the blog post properly that the mandate was delayed? >> it is the transition release. >> that means it's delayed for one year. >> yes. due inmployer report filing season 2015 one now be due in 2016 but that does not mean we are not going to continue to work with is this is to understand what types of offerings -- >> but next year the employer mandate will not be enforced. >> that is correct. >> i do believe the irs will enforce the individual mandate that average americans have acceptable coverage next year. is that correct? >> it is still in place. >> one of the comments from the inspector general for tax administration said that the irs will need to ensure that tax returns accurately show the aca

provisions and that above all they are treated fairly. i guess my question for you is, is it fair that big businesses are off the hook while the average taxpayer is going to be required to buy federally acceptable coverage through an individual mandate? how fair is that? >> my role in the irs is to implement the law. i rely on the treasury department to make certain a policy nature. in the issue of and equity, it's a policy called the treasury department made. there is a balancing that goes on in making sure we are implementing the law as effectively as possible. the employers and the business community reached out, indicating a need for more time. it was a balancing decision made that we should provide them the time. mr. cullen, i appreciate your openness about what hhs may be doing.

how important this is as we're seeing a new development every day in this area. any concern that this is unnecessary, i think those concerns are waved away by her comments, but let me just say, you have seen the filings for the plans being offered in the 34 federal exchanges, have you not? >> we have had submissions. >> they come to your office. have not seen them in the american people have not seen them. the averageis will family in northern michigan see a $2500 reduction in the premium that they pay? >> we have not released any data on the rates that had come into the federal facilitating box. we are careful just as we do programs and only

release that information once we have an agreement. we do not want to affect the market. >> the president said $2500his could be up to for typical family. is that going to happen? we are a couple of months away and people are concerned about the costs. how can they meet these obligations question mark is the average family in northern michigan going to see that kind of rate reduction? >> i think the average family morehave in a marketplace options and for better coverage and at affordable price. once the affordable care act is in place. >> so there will be that reduction. it in we cannot say. >> you can understand why citizens are concerned on what is going to be a very large expense for their families and we cannot have any prediction in terms of what this is going to

be after several years of so- called implementation. >> predictions have proven not to be useful. at ratester to look where states have actually released. seen,the numbers you have have you seen an average $2500 reduction? >> we have seen a reduction if you compare apples to apples coverage in a number of cases, yes we have. >> for the average family, you have seen a $2500 reduction. >> i cannot speak to that specifically. >> i am quoting from the president. are you saying i am not quoting from them accurately? i hope not. >> i am not suggesting that. i am just not sure what the president said. >> here we go. the president talked about up to.

let me tell you what is happening in michigan. 14 insurance carriers have now submitted to be participants in a marketplace. 14. when blue cross blue shield has role in theminant insurance industry in michigan. that is a fact. and for republicans who say they believe in competition, essentially that is what this marketplace is going to bring about for the citizens of michigan, including central michigan. if 209 is passed tomorrow and becomes law, with the irs be able to implement the affordable care act? >> if my understanding of the

law, we would not because we would not have the facility to extend resources to join the implementation effort. >> it will not happen. let me ask each of you if i might, will your agency be ready to go on october 1? >> yes, we will. >> we are assuming that 209 does not pass. >> yes, we will. >> will consumers be able to begin enrolling in the exchange or marketplace coverage on october 1 question mark >> yes, but will. onwill that coverage start january 1 of 2014 question mark >> yes, it will. mr.werfel, there have been a lot of scare tactics about taxpayer data. let me read to you from your testimony.

-- at no time will this be displayed to anyone outside. is that in place? sures, we want to make there is clarity on when and how the taxpayer information is transmitted, over an encrypted channels, and all types of safe guards in procedures we put in place when we shared information -- irs.the iras we are using those same set of procedures, which have historically proven effective, not her fate, but very effective in mitigating the risk of any taxpayer information being used and accessed for unauthorized purpose. >> thank you. if either of you could contact if either it you could comment on how this is

going to affect average families. would you like to answer that? >> in two ways. one important way is that today for anyone who has an illness or who has had an illness in the past, it can be difficult or impossible to get health coverage incur -- health-care coverage because of their existing medical condition. that cannot happen with coverage beginning january 1. the second way, for many people it is been unaffordable because of their income level. for those people, it will be advancede has explain premium tax credits i go to the insurance company to offset a portion of the premium and a reduction on what they have to pay in terms of the deductibles and co-pays to make that

coverage affordable. >> iq. >> mr. johnson is recognized. >> thank you, mr. chairman. courthen, the supreme stated very clearly rejigged very clearly that americans have a choice. they can choose to have health insurance or choose not to and pay a penalty. that choice is never mentioned in the application, is it? >> the application ask people whether they want to of why and whether they want to get financial assistance in purchasing coverage. >> it never says that they do not have to do it. >> it never says that they have to do it. it is available to people who choose to come into the market. website, health care.gov, does not alert people that the sueme court says that they have a choice. >> i am not aware but it does

not surprise me. we do not tell people that they have to, either. it offers choices for people who want to. thatll you inform people they do have a choice, that they do not have to take the insurance russia mark >> our goal is to get as many americans enrolled in health coverage as we can because it provide security for their families and helps if they become ill. americans be tell they do not have to do this if they do not want to. people towill be many do that i'm not sure that it is my job. >> it is your job. there was a form letter asking that employee union asked be exempt. why are you asking to be exempt from the burial all. >> i will offer a perspective as

a federal employee myself and as at the irs, and that is, we have right now as employees of the government, affordable healthcare coverage. the aca was designed to provide an option or an alternative for the individuals that do not. all else being equal, if you are an individual who is satisfied that your healthcare coverage, you are probably in a better position to stick with that coverage than to change into a different environment and going through that process. for a federal employee, i think more likely, and i speak for myself, i prefer to stay with the current policy that i am pleased with rather than go through a change if i do not need to go through that change. thatf i am an individual does not have affordable healthcare coverage or i am unhappy with my coverage, then it is my understanding that the

exchanges would offer a competitive alternative to look bad and someone might want to pursue that. are saying is that they are pleased with their healthcare coverage and prefer to stay in their current health- care coverage. >> do they get a penalty for not taking government coverage? >> the individual mandate would only up for if they are not getting coverage at all. then they would pay the individual mandate. >> i do not read it that way. i have a question about fairness. the government was telling individuals who work more than 30 hours a week we are going to make your employer provide your healthcare. if they do not, you can get a subsidy in the exchange. any longer fore 2014. an employer does not have to offer coverage. the individual will have to go to the exchange in to get coverage. many have seen their hours/does is mrs. attempt to comply with

the 30 hour rule, and it is kind of confusing and disrupt thing. the fact is that obama care is not ready and it is the american people who bear the word and of not being ready. is that fair for employers and their employees? either one of you. >> i would just say, first of requirement that employees provide coverage under the affordable care act when he goes into effect a year from now only applies to larger employers. 90% provide coverage to their workers today. so the impact of that provision is actually quite small. smaller employers are not subject to the employer mandate under the affordable care act before and they will not be next year. there is a lot of

misunderstanding about what this provision is and who it impacts. so i think i would stop there. >> as i said earlier, i think on july 17 the treasury department official appeared here and answered these very questions. it is more appropriate for me to focus on the administration of these provisions and how effective the irs can be in administrating these issues. >> thank you. >> mr. wrangell. >> welcome. >> is your microphone on? >> [inaudible] the course ofto health insurance in new york, it was far more favorableservation? >> new york has published rates that are in effect in 2014 and they are lower or most people

than the rates that were in effect. >> and in this great country, we do have other examples of states providelly want to services for their citizens. >> that is great. >> it is abundantly clear that this hearing is being called not to be of any assistance in this program being successful. i do not understand that concept. in all of my legislative years, i have not seen such artists and attacks on such ideas, especially one that provides for healthcare for americans. it our morale that it is responsibility and our legal responsibility to enforce the law. to enforce the law. that is what you to intend to do. however my speaker has made it clear that this but nuclear

bygress should not be judged our performance in enacting law, but rather we should be concerning ourselves with the that have been repealed. believe in the good intent of my republican friends, i want you to answer -- how can this committee help you to effectively do your job, it's you look -- which you by law have to do it a tell you at this is not to helpis dou, but to defend -- defun the law. if they are taking the money

will this committee in good faith be improving the law are trying to make certain that the law does not work? >> i would just say that the ,resident's 2014 budget request $1.5 billion for the implementation of the affordable care act, and this committee could help us and i would appreciate the support. plan wass ridiculous -- was toipt rejigged succeed, then there would be no need for you to appear. if they repealed the funding, you would have no funding. and that is the publicly stated goal of the majority of the republicans here -- to not give you the resources. so you coming here is justice cap washing a blueprint of a

distraught to plan that not only concerns healthcare, but concerns the integrity of the united states ability to keep government running. the very way we do this is defend health care for citizens that have pledged to protect. and so i hope that soon, mr. chairman, we will have the chairman here and other agencies that have obligations to see how i can be better understood, how the majority intends to do fleet the funding for healthcare and to stop the government from producing and unfortunately not to have any plan to replace it. so if this is the beginning shot of the war, once we hear from the religious community, the health providers, the business community, that we will succeed

in i do hope that some of my republican friends will see that passing in improving laws is a heck of a lot better than destroying. let me thank you for at least your attempt to show that you are going to do the best you can and that this congress is going to do the best he can under president obama to provide healthcare for all american citizens. thank you. >> thank you. worried that if obama care is not ready for their loved ones. there are a lot of lives and state. you have to be able to depend upon it. i think that they see warren buffett getting a break on the employer manda not. on january 1 they are forced to i government health care or pay a tax.

they are not worried that that reduction in health care costs that the president promised my constituents is nowhere to be found. -- have youe heard successfully sent a pilot application to the social security administration and have they successfully verified it back to you? we have begun testing with social security administration. in may. testing is continuing and it will be completed this month. >> were saying you have not yet successfully sent a pilot. >> i have to get back to you on the details. >> how about homeland security?

they checked prisoner status. is the same for all the institutions. the testing has begun and he began a few months ago. it is continuing. it will be completed this month. >> it is really a simple question. have you sent out trial application and received it back successfully? >> i understand and i do not want to get in to the water on the technical aspects. >> a person comes to the exchange, they put in their application, pretty easy. and you say, we have to check it out. >> i'm sure that we can get that answer for you. >> isn't that your key job? aren't you in charge of having the data hub and the exchanges ready to go? >> i am one of the people working on the implementation of

the affordable care act along with the number of people at cmf. i do not want to give you an answer that is not correct. >> i appreciate you. that is really basic. allowing the use of the exchanges. you have sent to the states. >> my answer is the same. we have begun testing with the states and testing is ongoing and will be completed this month. the same is true with help issuers that will be participating with this as well. is it safe to say that it has -- it has notss been sent successfully throughout the system? >> i want to give you accurate information and i want to make sure i give you the right answer. no?ore yes or

>> i cannot say any more than i have. >> it is not very reassuring for families on the eve of this. >> i'm not saying that there is not an answer, i am saying that i will get it for you. >> it does not appear to be an answer. mr. warfel, let me ask you this. this is a hackers dream but i do not know who i more fear, someone on the outside hacking the information or the way our government handles it. you've foundd us that the irs significant abuses of power that you are already abusing, that you have never shared private agency ---information but i'm looking at an e-mail from 2008 world lois lerner did exactly that. she shared that information. how is she still on the payroll, and why did you tell us this did

not happen, and three, why should we trust the irs to protect our taxpayer information under obamacare? >> let me respond to each of those. let me clarify. i never assured that there are not incidences that have occurred. we share information roughly with 300 different federal and state agencies as a matter of routine business. we have procedures and safe guards in ways to protect that information. but no procedure or safeguard is perfect and that have been historical incidences where unauthorized information has been shared. >> that is not what you told us in our last appearance before the committee. my time is expired. >> i can answer that question. >> respond in writing for the record. mr. mcdermott is recognized. >> thank you mr. chairman.

welcome, gentlemen. you are at war. this is a battle. politicala typical battle where one side is throwing up dust and trying to confuse every body all over the country about what is happening. the hearing is really culmination of months of a careful buildup. the majority has been crafting a scandal narrative to support their truly relentless agenda -- to repeal the affordable care act. have heardths we nonstop complaints about the irs being corrupt and incompetent, despite that the only lyrically motivated act was the publicans request that the ig focus only on the treatment of conservative groups. they did not ask for a full study. they only asked for how did it

affect their friends in the tea party. so today we're going to discuss discuss whether or not the irs is capable and confident enough to see the law through and my colleagues have already thrown dust and mud at the wall to see if it sticks. none of the does. of it does. what are we going to do tomorrow, senator cruise from texas called the egg leaf votes to get people some cover when they go home so that people will see they are absolutely naked. the truth about this congress is that for 18 years, this committee has been functioning. 16 of those years were under the republicans. a vote inver taken this committee on the republicans on comprehensive reform. talk, nothingir has ever been tabled in this committee.

we we tabled a bill here and passed it out under speaker pelosi. and they have been trying desperately for five years now to destroy it. question before us is whether the irs is ready and able to collect their name, your family size, and income data to be used in a federal exchange of. not health status. they will not ask anything about anybody having ingrown toenails in this report. there is no prescription drug history that the irs is going to add, or the healthcare providers names, just the data they collect from the average the tax of putting on system in this country, name, how much you make, how many people in your family. ready, themf is medicare expansions will be ready to go. registeredg have 80%

by the first of march. we are already ready to go. and we have done an aggressive awareness campaign all along the west coast. california, oregon, and washington. you watch, the rest will be looking and saying i can't we have it in wherever they are from. my constituents are already seeing an average of $500 a rebates fromure parts of the aca that are already working to hold insurers accountable for how they spend the rhenium dollars they take in. this is not an investigation in pursuit of better government. this is a desperate 11th hour attempt to stop a law that will help americans. hard for me to believe that people who have made no proposals are saying to their people back on, don't you dare sign up for this obamacare, it is going to be awful for you.

you are going to wind up -- i don't know how you run for office telling people that you do not want to. on the tablesals today is straight out of the republican party. it is iny created massachusetts and at least one member on the dais campaign nationally on this issue, saying that they are now against romney care. the 50 ---pens to income,, $50,000 year when they go to the exchange, what will happen? explain the process for people. >> you just have a few seconds remaining. [laughter] that will be too much income to

be eligible for subsidies so they can buy insurance from the marketplace and through the existing health care marketplace outside the exchange. they will have all of the choices available to them. the private market solution to a pressing social problem. >> thank you. mr. ryan. >> i and joy following mr. mcdermott. i guess the here's that the majority is peddling a scandal narrative. they are throwing something at the wall to see if it sticks. had a gentleman from the national organization of marriage come here and testify how the irs league there since the taxpayer information to their political opponents. we had a lady from a pro-life group in iowa who told us how the irs said if you surrender your first amendment rights to speak your views, then maybe we will prove your application. that is not a phony scandal. that that is a real scandal. no matter what our colleagues

try to say, to whisk this issue away, the government was intimidating people and targeting them based on their political views. that is not phony, that is real. i want to ask you a question instead of giving you a speech for five minutes and then asking a question with 10 seconds to go. mr. cohen, is an adult child under the age of 26 within a affordable employer insurance eligible to receive a subsidy under the exchange? >> no. >> take a young woman 25 years old living in milwaukee. her mom and dad live in chicago. they have employer-sponsored health insurance. because to the exchange her job in milwaukee does not offer health insurance. she gets the three-page application for single people without employer coverage. the application said

specifically, single adults who were not offered health coverage from their employees. about employeron coverage. she signs appeared she gets a subsidy. it could be allison's of dollars of subsidies. >> i may be wrong. eligible if it covers it. since she delayed the employer mandate, your data hub has no way of reconciling that. she will get a subsidy that she is not entitled to or eligible for. take a husband and wife living in madison. the hersen that has the insurance is -- the husband has had the insurance and he is losing it because he is getting knocked down to 30. employer doesn't offer credible insurance. he isanother nea year that

doing it. he gets the subsidy. he gets a obama care. they are not eligible for the subsidy. you have no way of verifying that. going to do. are you going to make this person paid back? the law requires you to do so. if we are not going to reconcile this record, is that going to be two years of subsidies going to people that they are not eligible for. they got it through confusion, not fraudulently. does the law not require you to put a huge tax on their tax bill at the end of the day when you finally reconcile this data and so they will get thousands of dollars of taxes crawling back to subsidies that they were not eligible for. is that not what you will have to do? >> the employer report that is going to be very helpful in validating the state of coverage.

>> they were working together with the business community to figure out alternative solutions. a partnership with the business timidity. signs this 25-year-old up because she does not get health insurance but she is ineligible for the subsidy. she applies for the subsidy because she does not know any better, are you going to catch that? >> she is in the right income. >> most 25-year-olds are. >> the exchange will reach out to employers at that time. it will not be the official report that will be getting this in 2016. >> this exchange will see all of this? it will figure all of this out? you will reconcile this record.

you will make sure she will not get a subsidy she is not entitled? >> we are working on solutions. >> let's say you don't catch it. do you not have to hit her with a tax liability to clawback that subsidy? let's say you don't catch it and she gets a subsidy she is not supposed to get. you have to hit her with a tax to get it back, correct? >> if we find there is a problem, we do that and we might be able to do that by working with the employer community. there will be a cap. depending on your income level, i can walk through that with you, there is protection for the individuals in those cases. >> i don't know why anyone who could get free insurance, free to them through their parents policy would choose instead to go on the marketplace and pay for insurance. >> i guess we will have to hope.

>> is not a question of hope, it is a question of logic. has the majority device the way we will be able to vote on this? >> if the gentleman would like us to. >> will there be proxy voting, internet voting. is the goal here to get to the 40th or the hundredth time. to work better than what we are experiencing here. a follow-up to mr. wrangles questions about what we are witnessing in new york and in some of the other states. on thatu care to expand line? >> yes, thank you. h h s put out a report recently that captured the 10 states in the district of columbia and since then we have seen

maryland that have made public the rates. that is a matter of state law and procedure that they make them public when they are filed. 18% below, they were what the congressional budget office estimated premiums would be in the marketplace beginning in 2014. in all cases, what our analysis shows are affordable in the particularly when you take into consideration the subsidies that people will be eligible for that would help to pay for a portion of those premiums. what we are seeing is in states where there is a relatively competitive market with a number of carriers that are offering coverage in the market, the marketplaces are offering new opportunities, new transparency, new competition that is having a very positive effect on rates. in addition, we have seen

overall health insurance costs and premiums coming up on a much lower rate today than they have been in decades. that certainly has been the case in massachusetts despite some of the acrimony that has developed in terms of the overall argument. there has been a stability that has settled then. you read stories from time to time indicating that this has changed or that has changed. by and large the satisfaction rate based upon governor romney's plan working with the democratic legislature that came to the conclusion that you could on a state-by-state health-nt stabilize care costs. i cannot emphasize enough that you have almost three quarters of the people in the state who regularly suggested that they are satisfied with the plan. i think you have a good model to build upon. >> i agree, thank you. >> thank you, mr. chairman.

>> i am a little concerned answerhe inability to mr. ryan's question. mr. ryan.yield to >> i don't think you understand the law you are in charge of executing and enforcing. the clawback where you limit how much a person pays back, that is only a person who is eligible for a subsidy if their income changes in a year in which the subsidy takes place. gets a subsidy they are not eligible for, which clearly would be the case if your major enforcement tool am a the employer mandate is not in case, the law requires you to clawback 100% of that subsidy. the hypothetical had a lot of moving pieces. you are correct. the one question i have, we discovered that this individual got an inappropriate subsidy. we have made some connection

with their employer to learn that information. >> which will be 2015 at the earliest. >> we will get the official employer report in 2016. >> somebody will get two years of a subsidy that they signed up for unknowingly that they got which the law does not make them ineligible for and you will have to tax that back in two years time. that is the law, correct. >> we will help the individual at the front end. you can understand whether they have an employer-provided plan. >> you don't have an employer mandate and you don't have the tools to verify this. you will have a lot of people getting subsidies. you will hit them with a big tax bill and about two years because the law requires you to do that. mr. cohen.

do you foresee any provisions that might not be ready for implementation? >> no. >> can you grant any more waivers to employers or two companies that come and petition for another additional time or waiver? >> no. none. >> you will not give any waivers to any companies, any unions? >> if what you mean by waiver is telling someone that they are not required to follow the law that i am charged with implementing, the answer is no. will will the irs need to access american healthcare records in order to enforce the obamacare taxes? .> no >> what will they have to go after?

>> we are providing taxpayer information through the hub, to the exchanges, which are income, filing status, household size. the other factor that we need to know is we need to know fact of coverage. we will get information about the policy like the number and the insurer. other than that, there is no other information. we do do a copy patient for what the advance premium tax credit is. gosh we do get implementation for what the premium tax credit -- we did get information for what the advance credit is. the plan that is chosen, the cost. >> that information, how many other government agencies at this time will you be sharing that with? the tax records. >> i don't know. i will answer the question this way, we currently share taxpayer information with roughly 300 federal and state agencies under existing laws and

regulations. the aca will add additional entities that will receive this information come in particular the exchanges, both the state and the federal fight exchanges. baseline is 300 state agencies under existing law and regulations before the aca came about receives taxpayer information from irs. there is a lot of safeguards in place to protect that information. now, a number of agencies will be expanded but it will be expanded because it is flowing through to the federal and state-based exchanges. >> how many new irs agents have been hired to implement obamacare? >> i can get you information, i don't know. >> if you give me a moment, i will get that information. >> can you get how many have been hired to date but also how many you plan to hire?

>> we will have estimates for the 2014 budget. right now, we are in a hiring freeze due to sequester and budget cuts. there's been a lot of challenge there. >> thank god for that. >> thank you for your testimony. let me assure you of something. at some point we will start to ask you questions more and more bipartisan leak on how to implement this but for now, you are witnessing and experiencing part of a strategy to undermine the ability for the health security law to actually take effect. thatweek in the article mr. levin introduced into the from the american enterprise institute. in that article titled "the unprecedented and contemptible attempts to sabotage obamacare."

what is going on now to sabotage obama is not treasonous, just ofrply below the standards the fiduciary responsibility of governing. he goes on to say? -- he goes on to say "to do everything possible to destroy the health care law which in this case is to deny coverage to those that don't have health insurance, to keep millions that might be able to get better coverage in the dark about options, to create description for the health providers, to threaten the even greater disruption through a government shutdown in order to blackmail the president into abandoning the law, and to hope the benefit politically is simple leon acceptable, even contemptible. -- is simply unacceptable and even contemptible." if people do not believe what he was writing, it was leaked ourthat this week republican colleagues had a

meeting where strategy was introduced by the speaker where of strategy was a series targeted strikes that will fracture the president's obamacare coalition and topple this law. they go to the strategy of how to do this. one of those is this hearing and this legislative proposal that is before us. i think at some point we will get to the point and -- to the nuts and bolts of administering the law. i had someone write to me back in 2000 nine. i am a self-employed architect and i pay a lot for a online did dr. bull policy. my son had a stroke when he was eight and he is not insurable. our insurance costs $750 a month. this is very expensive, beyond what we can afford. if we use the insurance, it

immediately jumps in price. the last time it was a 250 dollar per month increase in cost. if we incur another increase, we will have to drop the policy." mr. cohen, the law passed. eric and his wife are now under the new law. is his son now able to get insurance coverage? >> that's right, the law today prohibits insurance companies from denying eric's son coverage because of his previous stroke. >> so, that little boy could not be covered, today he has coverage of the way that every other child with that same kind of condition would be able to get coverage. let me ask you about another ourtleman come he says " insurance company retroactively cancel my wife's coverage after they approved her to get an mri. she has a bill that is three years to pay off.

do not consider this insurance. it is more akin to gambling. today, because of the rescissions provisions, is the insurance company able to the nine benjamin and his wife able tofor the mrna -- deny benjamin and his wife for the mri? >> they cannot. they look for a reason to take the policy way. they cannot do that it wil anym. >> one of the big arguments against doing this law was that it was a job killer. close to million jobs have been created in the healthcare industry since april, 2010 we passed the law. rather than kill jobs, this is helped to create jobs because people are gearing up in the healthcare industry to help 30 million americans to get health .nsurance like benjamin to have

i hope at some point we will actually able to get to the nuts and bolts of how we make this law works better because there are clearly kinks. nobody denies there are flaws in the law. the limitation has to do better than the policy and the written word in the law but at some point the fever will break in washington and we will get back to work here. we will make this work for everyone. >> let me assure my colleagues is that the reason that we have concerns that we don't believe there are kings, there are major problems. "i'm a student employee working at a research lab. last week, i received a notice from the university staff informing me me that due to recently change policy, i would no longer be able to work full- time and would have to stop

working after reaching a 28 hour limit. the culprit behind this change in policy was the affordable care act. ,hat is one of many letters phone calls, meetings that i had. not kinks, real-life problems with the affordable care act. that theman mentioned president stated that the $2500e family would see a reduction. i remember that. i heard a lot about it in my district in central ohio. the rate filings for the lane plans being offere? >> i haven't. >> i haven't either. department is warning that individuals in our state could face an 88% premium increase from current plans in

our state. would that be a 2500 reduction? >> most of those projections have proven to be completely erroneous. i don't know what they are looking at there. >> based on what? >> on if you're making a fair comparison between the type of coverage that people will have beginning in 2014 and whatever coverage they had today. >> what the insurance up and he has set apples to apples. if you have a plan offered today by blue cross, blue shield that is a standard plan, you will see a standard plan that will go up about 88%. haven't seen those rates, so i cannot comment on that. >> i would hope you would come back after october 1 when that information is public so that constituents who ask us why these plans are going up, we can ask you.

on the marketplace training slideshow from this month entitled "understanding the health insurance marketplace" it notes that there are 10 population centers around the country including ohio and columbus that you will have special enrollment assistance contracted to help young and healthy people. can you tell me about what the special enrollment assistance will do and how they will be contracted, who will pay for them? bid ahave put out for contract for people to help with enrollment. what you are referring to is that we want to focus our efforts on areas where there are large areas of uninsured. be able toill be provide assistance. >> how different are the

navigators? >> the program is a grant program and we have solicited them from community-based organizations. this is a federal contract. >> we will be doing the same job? >> we will be doing the same work but one is a grant program through locally-based amenities, the other is a federal contract. i found references to navigators, non-navigators, assistance personnel, in person and a sister, special enrollment, consumer assistance programs, certified application counselors. they have different roles. >> the roles are similar. the navigators are doing more outreach. the enrollment the sisters, their job will be to help people go through the process

of going through an application. >> we have contempt for this but there was a ton of confusion. it comes from this website from our constituents that don't understand, who do not understand the difference between that there are different types of programs, how they are funded, are they agents, are they not agents, how familiar are they with healthcare law, healthcare services. letter to getu a other clarifications just on the website. this has come to our office. >> my understanding is that people do not care what name or funding source they will be looking for to get health insurance coverage. they will take that help and be very happy for it.

what myt to just repeat colleague here was saying. there is a lot of confusion and i think that this hearing is a forum where we can get some of those answers, hopefully. we appreciate your attendance here. we have some legitimate questions. i was just sitting here and listening to some of the testimony in some of the exchanges. it is obvious to me that even you are confused about what the law says or doesn't say. what you have accomplished or .ay accomplishe your answers are not clear and i think anyone can see that. out witht to start some questions that are yes or no questions. have you been able to implement section 9003 which increases taxes by limiting health savings

account expenditures? >> i would have to get back you on that question. >> i think you have been. have you been able to implement 900 four, increasing taxes on andibutions from has masa's? >> have you been able to implement -- >> i don't know. what have you been never to implement the but simple health spending arrangements under the plan. >> i will get you that information. >> that is a yes. charitableve the information on hospitals. >> that is yes. >> have you increased taxes on branded minor fractures and importers? >> i believe we have implemented that. 9009ve you implemented

which increases the medical device tax? >> yes. >> are you on track to implement 9010 which has a tax on health insurance providers? generally on track with all of our major old deliverables. >> have you raised taxes on those that have to take anonymized deduction? >> i believe we are on track. >> that would be a yes. some of these he could not answer but i have information that these are all yes, you have completed implementing these laws. i am disappointed that the supposedly benefits of this law haven't been seen by my constituents. i think that is the frustrating part and it is confusing. everot sure if they were be seen by my -- if they will ever be seen by my constituents. i find it odd that the

employees at the irs, you feel like you have good health insurance and you would like to keep it. so would the irs employees. so would a lot of other americans across this country. , we could keep our health care plan if we liked it or we could keep our doctor if we like our dr. according to the president, and i will paraphrase, there seems to be some language snuck into the law that runs contrary to that premise. it runs contrary to the premise of you can keep your dr. if you like. it runs contrary to the premise that you can keep your health care plan if you like it. irs agents have filed a waiver. i know of a lot of americans that will ask for a waiver.

it is deeply disappointing that the only part of this bill you have been able to implement are the provisions that have cost americans and will cost americans in their pocket book. mr. cohen, i am really confused by your testimony about the testing of data. you will get back to us on an answer. is that what i heard you say? what is the testing? i want to know what this is. >> this is all aspects of the system that will be needed. october 1.tional on >> what have you done? what have you done? ani am a layperson, i am not i.t. person. they test the systems to make sure they are functioning as they are meant to and they run different scenarios to see whether -- question think they are on

track? once we are. -- on track?nk they are >> yes we are. a these are dependent on large amount of technical interfaces, program infrastructures. i think you are in trouble, i don't think you will meet your deadline, and i yield back. >> it has come as quite a surprise this morning to learn that the focus and purpose of this hearing is to determine whether the affordable health care act is on track. the people that are conducting the hearing when it comes to healthcare have been very zealous on the gear element program -- on the d rail mid- program. they offered no constructive suggestions. it is never how can we make health care better for the american people, it is always, how can we d rail it. i am surprised that they even have time to have a hearing between the repeal votes. we have had so many of them.

two and a half years ago in this very room, we had our first hearing at the beginning of the last congress on the repeal of obamacare. repealse proceeded to it, vote number one. the next day, they passed a two page bill that can taint 12 platitudes about healthcare -- that contained 12 platitudes about healthcare. that is the last time we have heard about this except for one year that provided tax breaks for tylenol. the alternatives being offered to do american people to obamacare is really nothing care when it comes to legislative action in this committee and on the floor of the house. many problems with the affordable health care act. toish your efforts to try see it affectively implemented were not day after day being undermined and underfunded, and interfered with. tell us, if you would, mr.:, on

october 1, because i never thought that their attacks were about denying the irs power or denying you power. they are about denying rights to the american people that they are now entitled to under the affordable health care act. affordable health care. if you among the uninsured in what right do you have as an american citizen under this act? >> you will be able to submit an .pplication you will be able to determine whether you are eligible for a chip or a subsidy. you will be able to shop and choose rabbit health insurance in, and want to enroll

beginning in january -- you will have to make a premium payment, but the amount of the tax credit will go directly to the insurance company and help pay for that coverage. >> if you are working at a lower wage job you are entitled to a premium tax credit to assist you in getting tax credit you have not been able to get until now? >> i had acorrect. woman come to me in tears because her sister had breast cancer and when she went to get treatment, she learned she only had $25,000 of treatment to treat that condition, and they would not let her get the treatment because it was going to cost more than that. woman likes to a that who was left victim to the fine print of her insurance about? seen knew nothing

what happens to her under the affordable care act? >> lifetime limits are no longer permitted, so you cannot put a cap on the amount of money paid over a person's lifetime. annual limits will be phased out . an insurance company cannot say, we will only pay a certain amount a year. >> the rights under this affordable healthcare act, that has been they are willing to shut down the entire government just week as they are so zealous about derailing the affordable care act and denying rights to americans. a senior, do you get

any rights that if we appealed the affordable care act you would be denied that you get already? >> there are a number of rights under the affordable care act. preventive services are provided free of any did that the ball -- of any did a double -- deductabl e. >> are there any benefits that seniors would be denied that they have today? doughnut hole was closed by the affordable care act. >> that answer will have to be >> i am glad to see my colleague from texas recognizes there are many problems with this health care a lot.

-- healthcare law. i am certainly aware of it. mr. ryan pointed out a number of problems that are going to occur because of the delay in the employer mandate and the propensity for overpayment fraud, andpossible so forth, yet treasury had three years to come up with regulations on how this would , and the department has failed to come up with an adequate approach to this, so is there a problem with the statute ? the burden is on your shoulders to implement this. i know you have had some problem

with treasury. is there a problem with this that shoot? >> i do not have a problem with the statute. we are working on how to best .mplement legislation >> it has been three years, some very smart lawyers, and you referenced alternative measures to validate, but can you give us any indication? is there any hope you can implement this? buthere is a lot of issues, the one you are focusing on is whether we could determine whether an employer provided land would block an individual from getting a tax credit. thinks one issue, and i the delay does create additional challenges, but it is not something we cannot mitigate. discussionsthose

again? theseou brought into discussions from day one? >> not from day one. the first i learned about it was june, but my staff had been consulted before then, because they were constantly being consulted to understand weinistrative impacts, and determined we can work to get other sources of information to do the job of determining whether there was a sufficient employer offer. >> did the irs recommend the delay? >> not that i remember. >> it is my understanding that they discussed the issue. i am not sure who in the government recommended the delay. i understand the employer

community made comments that we should take time. when were you informed of the delay? were you notified earlier? >> i think it was june 21. >> who told you? >> i was at the meeting, and i understood this was in the works. >> we need to do more oversight. we are trying to understand what the problems are, and this is just one of them. asked ther ago i commissioner to provide documents about premium and whether they would

apply to federally created exchanges. you to get those because ito us, seems to run counter to the statute. beforeou get that to us december? >> i will get back to you as soon as possible. i just have to look into it. >> i hope the staff has done work on that. i would like that information before we get back in september. much for theso comment. you indicated this was an oversight hearing. gentleman, is it your intention to improve the law as it relates to obama care? >> i believe the law is so

deeply flawed i favor repeal. me of wheninds indiana jones goes in and is talking to a guy from the says,ment, and indiana where is the ark, and the guy at the end of the movie says, we have top people working on it. what i have heard is we have got top people working on this. >> that is not what i said.

>> i paraphrased when you were the clawback, you basically said, do not worry. we have got top people working on it. driven low by previous witnesses. previous witnesses have come in with assurances everything was fine. people meeting deadlines. no problems at all, yet today we mr. levin asks questions. you say, yes, we will. my expectations are fairly low, future best predict or of

conduct is what happened in the past. it is a universally accepted ont that the payment rate medicare is about $40 billion. gtmo says that. the attorney general eric holder actually up a number. -- upped the number. he said it was much higher. how can you with a straight face give assurances to this committee that cms has it all down? give the hopet you are not going to have the same problems with the affordable care act that cms says it has all kinds of difficulty with medicare? >> i see no connection between

fraudulent pay in medicare and the work i am doing. >> is that it? suspect you could have any executive come in here and ask questions about how i.t. testing is done, and he would tell you, i need to refer you to the people who really are experts, rather than give you information that is wrong. i gave you the best answer i have, which is we have testing going on, and i will get back to you with the specific answer. >> what is it that animates your the activity of your agency that everyone says has ons fraud rate -- you agree that? >> i do not work for medicare. >> you are not aware about the attorney general's assertions about fraud in medicare.

ready for some news? your agency has all kinds of comes tohen it medicare fraud, medicaid fraud, and what you basically said is, we are good. >> no, i see no connections between those issues and the ones i am dealing with. >> let me ask another. you said earlier the impact on the employer delay is quite small. itit's so small, why hasn't and fixed in three years? said it is small because of the number of employees. 96% of the employees subject to the mandate already offer coverage. the number is relatively small. >> it is a fairly complicated problem you have not been able

to fix yet. >> that is not my responsibility. my responsibility is to implement the affordable care given to local laws the department of health and human services. >> you have top people working on it. i yield back. >> welcome to guerrilla warfare. you for being here today. i know you are answering to the best of your ability. i would imagine since we are all here to help implement allrdable healthcare to american citizens, certainly not to undermine a program that has is law, that has been vilified by the sip -- supreme court in

terms of mandates. it,re here to implement much like in the mid 60's with social security when both sides came together to help implement the program. if healthcare costs grew slower than the rest of the economy for the first time in more than a decade and the portion of request to state regulators seeking approval of double-digit and privateeases health insurance plummeted from far in2010 to 14% so 2013. is the following.

is this because of the good feeling of insurance companies? is it simply by chance, or somebody is manipulating the numbers and all of these things are not right, what is the reason? >> there are a number of reasons but among them is increased , the 80 20 rule that requires insurance companies spend $.80 of every premium dollar on actual health care than administrative cost or profit, which means if their premiums are too high they are going to have to pay a rebate act to enrollees. >> let me ask you this. one of the cornerstones of the affordable care act was the availability of tax credits to

make premiums affordable. what tax credits are available for individuals and families and who would qualify? > e me a quick synopsis. >> if there is an individual, if 140% of thehin poverty line they would be eligible for support. the premium subsidy goes directly to the insurance company. they never see the money, but they could get less expensive premiums. with thed start exchange by getting money up

front, or they could pay their premiums throughout the year, and that the end of the year file for credit to cover the payments they have made. either one is available. >> that means in new jersey uninsured individuals with family incomes under 400% -- what is the 400%? for hundred percent of what? >> 400% of the poverty line. >> they are going to be eligible for medicaid or subsidized coverage. it iss the difference going to make in the state of new jersey. my good friends from washington , good peopleana who have brought a lot to the congress, they are not here to

help implement this. there are always problems with every piece of legislation. passed perfect legislation. only god is perfect. not us. why aren't we helping each other trying to get this done? i can't answer this question. it is a mystery to me because they have never identified with the results. while you have given people more time on the other side. would like to ask for unanimous consent to offer a letter to the employees union.

the information the irs will start gathering related to the , will the care act irs consider disclosure of that information to be a violation of 6103? it is done outside of the regulations, then yes. falls on the question just asked relative to who is eligible for the tax credits available through these exchanges. it was my understanding it was of theing to be citizens united states or permanent residents. there folks beyond that to our eligible under the program? >> you have to be a citizen and lawfully present. >> what does that mean?

>> you could be here on a student visa. >> if a student from germany comes here for four years of college that student is going to be subsidized for health insurance? >> they are eligible depending their income. >> somebody comes to the united states on a travel visa and perhaps wants to stay longer, will that person be able to apply for tax subsidized insurance coverage while here? >> if they overstay their visa, no. are able to apply illegally? >> yes. >> are there any other people that might be from another entry -- is that person eligible for the subsidy? >> i am not sure i understand the question. 20 onm looking at page

the website for those eligible for the program, and one of the categories is battered spouse or parent. >> i'm not familiar with that particular status. asking whoon i am makes that determination if the person is battered and how are you setting up regulations to have the verification people applying for the subsidies are actually eligible based upon the structure of the program? how are you going to verify? verification is done through the department of homeland security. >> i know a few of my colleagues have asked about my state. i am from pennsylvania, and it would be a federal exchange. up and running

october 1 in pennsylvania? >> yes, it will. have rate filings been offered as part of the establishment of that exchange? have submitted health plans to be certified, yes. mywill the family and district seat 2500 dollars in their premium? >> i cannot speak to what will be. that will be made public in september. >> handing your testimony on august 15, grants will be issued for the navigator program. will anyone receive navigator grant money? >> i am not involved in a grant reward process, but my understanding is there will be navigators. >> do you know how many?

>> i suspect there will be at least two. >> i want to thank you for holding this hearing. an important issue, and it is our intention to make sure american people have the highest quality healthcare. as a physician, i can tell you my former colleagues are having increasing concerns about their ability to care for their in a way they deem most appropriate. we are hearing from the other side there are not any alternatives. there is comprehensive inislation that puts doctors charge of health care not washington, d.c. senator baucus said he was worried about the rollout of

this being a train wreck, and what we are seeing is documentation of this train wreck. i think there is no doubt about it. you said your job is to administrate the private insurance market as it integrates with the aca. >> that is not what i said. my job is to implement the affordable care act as it pertains to the private insurance. the headline in the atlanta journal-constitution. insurance options shrink. george online marketplace to offer fewer choices. are going tostate have one insurance company. they have announced they are pulling out of the individual market for the exchanges.

that is not the way this was supposed to work. being to coverage is limited in the state of georgia, and i suspect it is true in other states. that does not follow. >> there are areas of our state have one insurer in the exchange. that is not an option. that is a dictate. that is forcing individuals into one program. let's get to costs. state of georgia is on track. commissioner sent a letter saying some rates are 198% higherp to than those currently available

in this eight, so if the state is on track, is this how it was supposed to work? are we supposed to have 198% increase for health coverage? ?s that the plan >> i do not know, so i cannot comment. >> you have seen the rate filings for our state? >> i have not. >> i would urge you to check rate filings for the state of georgia, and the fact is costs are going up. you said, many of my constituents are real concerned about the activities going on.

you were talking about potential leaking of donor information to other groups, and we have huge concerns and will continue this conversation about donors providing resources. you said, no personal health information will ever be disclosed. have access to personal information. >> i suppose you would have said no donors would have occurred. you understand the concern we have. i want to ask about this issue of market lace. you said they will only share this information with the marketplace. what is the market based. >> that is the exchange. >> they will have access? with somebody is working

this information, they will not have access to raw tax data. >> just like there were procedures to make sure certain tax-exempt organizations were not targeted. >> are you familiar with a word irony? >> yes. word to conveyhe the meaning that is the opposite , aits literal meaning deliberate contrast between apparent and intended meeting. i hearing on status of affordable care act implementation.

i would think my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are interested in how the affordable care act would be implemented. yet tomorrow we will have the to undo the affordable care act. fact they will go after your agency and deny funding for the out what iscarrying your responsibility. is that not true? >> that is my understanding. >> do you think it is ironic we are having this hearing? >> in the nature of the questions i have been taking like how do we address issues relating to potential fraud, my goal has been to work with congress. >> do you think they care?

i you know what i think? think they realize they will not be successful tomorrow in undermining the affordable care act. that willave a bill do away with the affordable care act, but it will not become law. somehow they must know the implementation is important to the american people. they have a responsibility to ask the proper questions about implementation. what i find really ironic is my colleague was concerned. their side of the aisle has attacked the ability of the middle class and the working class to access the tax credits

to the affordable care act on a number of occasions. have i heard them defend the working people of this country who will have the ability to afford health insurance in this country. in terms of smooth are 40 repeal, votes what you would consider to be there? >> i do not think they moved the ball forward. >> will tomorrow's vote to block tax credits help with implementation of the affordable care act in any way? i do not think it will have any impact. like to clarify one of the issues brought up earlier. there is talk of the hub.

can you clarify will any personal data be stored on the ?ub >> no, it is so we can verify people put on their applications. >> it would be wonderful if all members of congress would put out helpful information so they can understand the benefits of the law. >> members of congress would be good resources with questions, wouldn't you agree? >> that is correct. we went through a political charade with almost four hours on the floor. not agree with the bill, but when it came to implementation, i never once did access through that

particular bill. do you think it would be wrong if members of congress would not with thetituents implementation of the law? >> i would hope and expect all members of congress would help. >> would you agree? >> i am not going to comment on how the member deals with their constituents. .> my time is up i will yield. >> mr. smith. >> thank you for being here today. in the context of my questions is my concern that the healthcare law will actually hurt the individuals it was intended to help. theyou briefly explain training for these navigators? how long do you intend this to take? >> it is a series of courses.

about 20ected to take hours. >> the licensees in the private sector are required to take exams and maintain continuing education. i would argue it is a little more burdensome than a training course. >> the training course includes s, so you havest to answer questions and be successful in taking those tests to get to the end. >> i think it is fair to say the protection of private information remains an unresolved issue at your agency. are you confident the data hubs can truly protect private information? i would expect you to say yes. >> i mentioned earlier we have a

strong track record. numbers. wede some provide taxpayer information to 300 agencies. that is 8 million a year. last year we know of 24 incidences of this breach where the information got into the wrong hands. that is 24 out of 8 million. every one of these instances is concerning. an assessmentmake and have a lot of reaction. haveoint i am making is we a historic track record of success. it is imperfect, but we take our responsibilities seriously to correct them going forward. non-ny of them remain a

issue. >> in some cases they are still being investigated. in other cases we investigate what changes may need to be made. >> we have heard there are subsidies offered to individuals through their insurance land, -- insurance plan, but and undo and can youd exist, tell us briefly how it would be recaptured? things. is two you apply for a subsidy and provide certain income information, and you are essentially predict things what that income information would be. you are saying when i get to -- y >> that could change. >> that could change. data,e relying on recent so after we go through the whole

know what the actual income was, so we do reconciliation to determine, maybe they were given too much. we work it out with the taxpayer. >> would you characterize that as tax increase? mean the taxpayer would owe more. .t could mean a tax >> would you characterize that as tax increase? pre-k's no. be -- >> no. it may be smaller than anticipated, but it is a benefit. >> we heard it was a recapture of undo subsidy in the exchange, and we were told it would be a tax increase.

we may be talking past each other in terms of characterization. >> my concern is this ad to the complexity, and certainly as the exchange of information is out there, the more increase, the more errors will occur. >> obviously the law is confusing in many respects. the administration was telling individuals who work more than 30 hours a week we are going to make your employer provided healthcare coverage, and if they do not you will get get a subsidy under the exchange. >> large employers. >> that is no longer true for 2013. an employer does not have to

offer coverage. >> that is true, but 96% of them already do. >> they will have to go to the exchange to get coverage, and all lots of them have seen their this is their attempt to comply with the 30 hour rule. i have heard of cities concerned about volunteer fire department that it is affecting their volunteer employ firefighters and they are concerned if they are on call the city may have to provide health insurance, and that could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. >> that seems unlikely. >> but these are all concerns. >> that seems like an unlikely scenario. >> this is confusing. it is disruptive to people's

lives. is this fair for employee euros -- employers or employees? itwe are going to make possible for millions of people who have been unable to have health insurance previously get health insurance. that is what we are doing. >> you acknowledged earlier , and have not been delays the irs has not delayed the medical tax, which the costs of which are going to be passed onto consumers in in the form of higher premiums. has the irs done any analysis ?nto the impact placed on firms >> we would certainly look at administrative impact, because withoal is to work taxpayers to improve taxpayer service for the irs.

does the irs have any sense of the problems? >> i would want to get back to you. i can talk to my team about pacific problem. >> would you agree the cost of compliance would also have a negative impact on patient care? >> that is a policy call. i cannot make a judgment on that. >> they have indicated the cost not revenue -- the compliance costs have been estimated around $667 million so far. that is in addition to elliott of dollars for maintaining quality jobs and research and development. up.me do one follow

you mentioned you have seen rate filings in different states. does minnesota come fly? >> minnesota is offering a change, and they are doing well. >> has your office seen rate filings for the planned yang offered in minnesota? >> the state is running the exchange. he will make them public when they make them public. >> could you say when an average family would see a reduction in their premium? >> i do not know what the rates will be. -- i yieldthat. back. >> mr. davis. >> thank you, and i want to thank the witnesses for being here. morning, anded all it came to my mind i have never seen the implementation of a new

on a new law that targets the entire country without there being a glitch. it also occurred to me the only perfection i have ever seen were -- egyptianmmies, mummies, and they did not move. if we were toe ask one of more than 30 million had nouals who until now access to health insurance if any of the reasons we heard this be a reason to do what i call throw out the baby , because ithwater

is not as clear as we would like for it to be. tomorrow we will vote on something, and we will not necessarily vote on what we are hearing today, because that is not exactly the purpose. today we are looking at perfecting ideas. how do we make the affordable care act more affect it? how do we improve it? make sure there are fewer glitches as implementation occurs? let me ask you, if we look at place,s already taken

what happened in the future, we have already seen a slowdown in in nationalosts health tending and in medicare. week the council of economic advisors announced the slowest growth in health ending -- health spending in 49 years. thing i have heard year ther year has been increasing cost of health care, that we are spending more money and getting less. i am told insurance companies must spend at least 80% of their premiums on medical care, not other kinds of things.

saved2 americans have $3.4 billion. is a lot of money, even in chicago, illinois. that is a lot of money. $3.4 billion saved and another 500 million in rebate. could you share additional kinds -- benefits we have already seen from the affordable care act? -- >> young people who have been able to get insurance from their parents coverage. 71 million americans who have gotten access to preventative services at no cost to them. 27 million women have gotten guaranteed access to additional services. point 6 million children

who have pre-existing conditions cannot be denied insurance coverage as a result of the affordable care act. , those kindsl you of benefits -- we can knit take about verification or anything we come up with, but the reality is the american want to see implementation of the affordable care act, and that is what we are going to get. back.d >> for three years we have been monitoring the phone calls, e- mails, and letters about the affordable care act. 95% of correspondence i get from my constituents is against obama

care. sois against implementation, as a representative of my district, some of the questions i will ask are going to reflect that. applicationat this and have listened to the testimony we have had, and i want to thank the chairman for having this hearing -- i am finding out not only after my told they arere going to be breaking the law if they do not have health insurance and if they do not they can fill out this application -- they are going to owe a penalty, and they get into the middle of the application, and they found this application asked for very personal aboutation and asks almost every bit of their financial life.

my constituents are very alarmed right now with all the headlines about information being shared about their phone records, information being shared about their e-mails. they are alarmed. they are concerned the government is learning way too much about their private lives and that the government is sharing way too much of that information. butcannot be anything alarmed after going through this application and hearing today in this hearing this information is owing to be shared with date insurance agencies. -- with state insurance agencies. it is going to be gathered by be making $10 may or $12 an hour. it is going to be shared with private insurance carriers, and these are going to be allowed to access information from the irs

thomas and they are alarmed. nowhere in this document does it say by law the supreme court has said you do not have to take this insurance, that you can pay a penalty. >> i would like to work with you to ease your constituents concerns, because nobody has to provide any information about themselves unless they want of an asset. -- they want a benefit. they do not have to provide any information. >> if they follow the law, they must fill out this application. >> i hope you will tell them that is not true. >> or be in violation of the law and pay a penalty. >> that is not true. >> americans want to do the right thing, and i believe they will go to this application because they feel they must follow the law. >> the application asks if you

want to receive a subsidy, and if you say yes you go on to provide information. if you do not want to receive a subsidy, you do not have to tell us anything. family risk on coble fills this application out, how can -- if a responsible family fills this application out, how can they be assured this will not be shared with an insurance company and that clerk will have access to find out if the information you gave is correct? or some navigator in a tax- exempt organization. they will assure them never share the information based on filling the application. >> we have heard it says the number of people who are going to receive personal irs

information is going to be and youantly expanded, are saying only if you desire this you will be giving information for this information to be shared. >> i respect your concerns. instructionst give on how a person can be registered to vote? >> because congress filed a law that said a need to provide opportunity to know how to register. law, and we follow it. >> a person does not have to fill this out i law.

>> your time has expired. >> i want to thank you for this important hearing. three weeks ago we had a rule that said you are not ready to fully verify income. changed? >> we have confirmed we are able .o verify income 100%? can verify for if that is the case, i am concerned with the rule put out that said we do not have technology to be able to do that, yet three weeks later we are ca we have the technology to do that. >> that is not right.

to bemple size is going 100%. we always said we are going to do it. >> it did say you do not have the technology to implement. point.go to your next on april 12, secretary civilians claimed 15 times there would be no further delay in this law. yet the first of july we got a rule that said there would be a delay of the employer mandate in verification. i find that really interesting that 15 times in our committee we are not going to have a delay, yet you claim you are making efforts to verify coverage. tomorrow we are going to receive

a new rule. the are 60 days out. ready.t believe you are can you tell me what the role of other contractors will be on these recently signed contract would be? it is a source of data. we would be checking against it in circumstances we cannot provide information provided, we

would check it against data, because that is a current source of how much people are getting for many employers. you are saying in this committee 100% of applications income? have verifiable >> if we cannot verify against the sources, we request documentation from the individual. pay will have to provide stubs. >> i want to go back to clawbacks. you mentioned the irs is going to be clawing back fraudulent payments, and somehow the administration thinks this is going to determine fraud. degree explain to what if they are made through similar

?ax credits that is still money that goes out the door. $11 billion were fraudulently and $3t -- doled out , billion under the education tax credit. >> i know we are running out of time.

>> as i said, this is absurd. we are 60 days out from full implementation. administration admits we are not ready. i realize you are relatively new to the position. have inou to know i raising that issue with the previous commissioners for several years and have not gotten concrete or postal fun how this committee might be able to address improper payments, and that is why there is concern. >> i thank the chairman and our witnesses for being here this morning. commend our chairman as this committee has conducted business over this past year for

the bipartisan nature in which we have done things. this committee does not take on the same feeling. rather than a hearing but i ssure you there are no torquemundas on the other side. they are good people. it's unfortunate we couldn't be working on constructing the healthcare affordable act. without the healthcare affordable act, all of the provision that is you talked about that people are